Portage la Prairie, MB –

Hisses and snarls exchanged for headlines and smiles launched CIPP TV Channel 116’s noon news anchor’s career.

Throughout grade school Betsy Sass would spend her recesses and spare time channeling an angry feline when other children would come near her.

“One day when I was five, I came down the stairs and decided I was a cat, so I told my parents.  They agreed since I wasn’t very popular as a girl.  For the next few years, I was mostly a cat.”

Being an only child of very progressive and permissive parents, Brent and Barbie Sass encouraged their daughter’s desire to become a feline.

“We had a couple cats at home, and I would spend all my time with them.  We would groom each other, and we all had our own food dish and litter box.  It was a magical childhood.”

Betsy had some challenges fitting in at school and both students and teachers had a hard time understanding.

“Growing up in the nineties was tough for someone wanting to be a cat.  Nobody was as open as they are today to children picking their own identities.”

Sass struggled to make friends and was non-verbal until grade four when she made a special connection with a teacher.

“They tried to get me to speak, read and write but back then I just was happy being a cat.  At school I’d hiss and spit and sometime clatter my teeth when I wanted people to stay away from me.  It wasn’t until Mrs. Lancing put me on her lap and rubbed my chin that I even wanted to be a human again.”

Edith Lancing made a special connection with Sass by accepting and treating her as a cat a move that was opposite of the conformity the other teachers attempted.  She quietly hid all Betsy’s cat toys and weaned her off catnip.

“The next day they took my litter box out of the classroom, and I started using human words and sitting in my desk.  It was like her acceptance made me want to be more than a cat.”

Sass went on to excel in English and acting and eventually took an interest in journalism and is now a proud alumni of Blue Lake Community College’s prestigious journalism program.

She is now co-anchor of CIPP TV’s Midday with Mike Sweeney.  A huge step up from the small market Thunder Bay TV station she cut her teeth at.

“I’m so excited to be part of the team here at CIPP TV.  Midday gives me the chance to interview and fill time with stories that wouldn’t normally make it to a TV news casts.  It’s a lot of fun filling an hour of Canadian content with Mike every day.”

Former(click to find out why she got fired) CIPP TV News Director Pat Hiscock is happy to have given the young Betsy Sass a shot at a medium-sized TV market.

“When I heard she was a cat as a kid I knew she was broken enough to work here.  She would work cheap, and I could tell when I interviewed her she wouldn’t ask me a lot of annoying questions or have a problem slopping out filler everyday for an hour.  Midday is designed to pander to our local sales team and clients and offer a place to talk at length, about things most people don’t care that much about.”

Betsy Sass can be seen Monday to Friday at lunch time on CIPP TV Channel 116.

Photo: Heather Kennedy – Flickr

Note To Reader – this article and television station are a work of fiction.  Click here for more disclaimer, disclosure, and legal information.  Midday and Betsy Sass are entirely made up and this isn’t really happening.  Don’t share this with your friends and family in hopes of trying to trick them into thinking there is a new local TV station that is this awesome.  A station this good could only exist in our imaginations.  Did you think it was 1993 and local television still existed and was relevant.  Back in 1993 the internet was just a wobbly necked baby with no real clout.  Not like today where is houses incredible fictional TV stations even better than those found in the early 90’s.  Thanks for watching and be sure to tune in tomorrow.