McHenry grad is investigative reporter on Louisville TV

McHENRY – When Fallon Glick graduated from McHenry’s East Campus in 2008, she was sure she had it figured out. She was strong in mathematics and science and, therefore, thought the medical field was an obvious choice. She enrolled in the physician’s assistant program at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Soon after, Glick found herself in the same boat as many a new college student is in – she had no idea what she wanted to do.

“It wasn’t for me,” Glick said. “I shadowed my first surgery and let’s just say it didn’t go well. I almost passed out. I took a step back and asked myself the cliché question, ‘what am I going to do with my life?’ ”

After completing some general education classes at McHenry County College, Glick went on to Columbia College Chicago to study film.

“When I went to Columbia, I felt like I was in a pre-midlife crisis because I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Glick said. “I originally enrolled in the film program there but at orientation, realized it wasn’t for me. I’ve never had that type of creative mind. The day before school started, I changed all of my classes to the television program.”

Glick took an introductory class that required students to create a newscast. The intro class overlapped with the broadcast journalism program. Glick found herself working on projects with students from that department.

“I changed my major to broadcast journalism,” she said. “When it was time to graduate and start interviewing for jobs, I realized how hard of a field this is to get into and I thought, ‘Oh no, what have I done?’ ”

Glick’s mother, Mary Glick, was there for her daughter to lean on during her career exploration. The McHenry resident knew her daughter was very smart and determined and would find her way.

“She told me she was going into journalism and I said, ‘Well that’s good, I think you should’,” Mary Glick said. “I thought she would be really good at it and I told her that we would pray on it and see where it leads her.”

Glick landed a job at WLIO in Lima, Ohio, after graduation and started down a career path that was never the plan.

“I never wanted to do journalism,” Glick said. “I never thought I would be doing this. It was never on my radar. When you go to a new station, you have to write a bio for yourself. I’ll read other people’s bios that say they always knew they wanted to be a reporter and that they would practice doing reports into their hairbrush in the mirror. I never did anything like that.”

Glick won the 2007 Miss McHenry pageant title and she said looking back, maybe the interview process and public speaking portion was somewhat of a foreshadowing, but she did not see it at the time.

The 28-year-old is now an Emmy-nominated general assignment reporter at WDRB News in Louisville covering everything from politics, to health, to heart-warming community stories. She anchors the weekday 6 and 6:30 p.m. newscasts and reports for the 10 and 11 p.m. news.

Glick said she’s very happy in her career choice, but like any job, it comes with its challenges.

“I might be at a heated rally on gun control and I’ll talk to one group and then talk to another. I have to get both sides,” Glick said. “One side may think they should have more of the story because there are more of them there. You try to get both sides but the viewers and those involved don’t always see it that way. It can also be difficult when you have to report on crime cases. They can be very sad and disturbing.”

On Aug. 5, Glick was interviewed on an episode of “On the Case with Paula Zahn” on Investigation Discovery titled, “Where’s Crystal?”

The episode is an in-depth look at the unsolved disappearance case of Crystal Rogers, a mother of five from Bardstown, Kentucky, who went missing in 2015. A year-and-a-half after Rogers disappeared, her father, Tommy Ballard, was killed. His case also remains unsolved.

Glick reported extensively on both cases in their aftermath and through the ongoing investigations.

“On the show, the tables were turned,” Glick said. “I’m usually the one asking the questions and telling the story and in this case, it was the other way around. I think I prefer doing the interviewing.”

Rogers’ case still is under investigation with police still searching for her. Her boyfriend, Brooks Houck, is the primary suspect.

“Nothing changed coming out of the episode, but it’s an hourlong show so people are able to grasp more of what they may have forgotten over the last three years and they were able to put more information up from the police investigation,” Glick said. “I generally have to cover most happening in two minutes but this gives people a better understanding because it was an hourlong to take it all in. It sparked a renewed interest in the case.”

Oxygen aired the first of a six-episode series on Rogers’s case on their network on Aug. 11. NBC-affiliated station LEX18 in Lexington, Kentucky, since hasreported that new leads are coming in as a result.

Glick said it is never easy to report on cases of this nature and that she found it especially hard after Ballard was killed.

“We had done so many stories with him in the past during the searching for Crystal. Whenever we would get new details or when the police were serving a search warrant, we would interview Crystal’s mom and dad,” Glick said. “This was the first time I had to report on someone I knew. I think it gives you even more sympathy when you go to other scenes. We spoke to his wife that day. She couldn’t speak. We didn’t do anything on camera for a month. It was just too much for her.”

Mary Glick credits her daughter’s success to her determination and caring nature, mentioning what an exemplary big sister she is to brother’s Henry, 25, and Dan, 30.

“She wants to always be the best at what she does no matter what,” Mary Glick said. “She has a caring heart. She’s a really good person and she cares about people and I think when she interviews people she can feel that. I’m glad that she gets to tell people’s stories even though some are hard to tell, but they need to be out there. I’m just so proud of her.”