Angelica Campos
Meteorologist, Fox 8 | 24
Angelica Campos is most comfortable in contradictions.
She knows what people see: a preppy, petite, dolled-up Costa Rican-born meteorologist with wide eyes and a big smile. Dumb and beautiful, right? But she's not just a pretty face. As a forecaster for Accuweather, she's covered weather for just about every major city in this hemisphere.
Still she's new to town, joining Fox 8 News in the Morning in June. So when it is suggested she might be fooled by her first lake-effect snow, her eyes narrow. She tries to restrain a sigh, but it slips out anyway. "I've covered Cleveland winters even though I've never been here for one," she says.
Accuracy. Trust. She's serious about it. Initially, she won't even reveal her age for fear Clevelanders would take that as inexperienced. (She's 24, having graduated college in three years while holding a full-time job.)
Plus, she's got genetics on her side: Her mom had a knack for looking at the sky and calling her five kids in just before the rain started to fall.
As Campos bites into a messy vegan sandwich, she says she normally doesn't look like this. She's dressed in the standard newscaster uniform: gobs of makeup, a neatly pressed blouse underneath a professional yet sexy blazer and skirt ensemble.
No. She's much more comfortable once she climbs aboard her motorcycle. And it's not some girly bike either. She rides a black Buell Blast that she got last summer.
"It gives me a freedom and connection with nature," she says. "There's nothing else that gives me that feeling."
Working on a morning show means she needs to show more of that Angelica. Morning viewers want to see the woman who prefers cooking to going out to restaurants. (She loves making traditional Costa Rican dishes such as picadillos.)
She looks a little uncomfortable when she has to pull away from the on-air script. But that's the airtime she prefers. "It's more fun. I get to reveal more of myself."
To reveal herself is to reveal a woman who is just learning to cut loose a little more. To not take herself quite so seriously.
This isn't made-for-TV viewing. This is a woman who doesn't mind being a little goofy — making funny voices is just one of her quirks — if that's how she's feeling. She is who she is, and she's betting you'll dig that.
