Former Whitehouse Press secretary Dana Perino climbed her way to the top of the conservative political circles the old-fashioned way, through hard work and dedicated loyalty, but those who knew her as a child would probably say she was destined for success.
According to a January 2010 interview with Robert Sanchez from Denver's 5280 Magazine: When Dana was six, after she returned home from a visit at the White House with her family. She immediately went searching for a milk-delivery box and an American flag. Her mom found her outside. Perino was in the driveway, standing on the box and waving the flag.
"What are you doing?" her mother asked.
"I'm going to work in the White House," Perino told her.
Born to Jan and Leo Perino in Evanston, Wyoming on May 9, 1972 Dana Marie Perino moved to Parker, Colorado, a heavily Republican suburb of Denver at the age of 2. As early as the third grade she began picking out articles from local newspapers that she brought home to her dad to debate at the dinner table.
"He wanted me to have read the newspapers," Dana said. "And to have picked out one or two articles to discuss by the time he got home and then we always watched the evening news together and my Dad and I would always watch the Sunday shows as well."
Attending Ponderosa High School, she was an honor student, a star on the debate team, and Senior class president. She continued her debate prowess after she enrolled at the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo (now known as Colorado State University-Pueblo) where she majored in communications and minored in politics. She was focused on becoming a reporter early on in her college career and was the host of the campus-based public television station, KTSC TV's weekly summary of Colorado politics called Capitol Journal. She also produced Standoff, a weekly public affairs program on the same channel. She additionally worked as a late-night DJ for a country music station in Denver. She graduated with her Bachelor's Degree in 1994 and went on to pursue her Masters in public affairs reporting at the University of Southern Illinois at Springfield. Here she was a public affairs reporting intern who covered the Capitol of Illinois for WCIA television until the day she was assigned to cover the trial of a young boy who was murdered in the city. She was expected to interview the mother and found out she couldn't go through with it.
“I think if I’d been good at that," she told UIS Alumni Magazine. "I would have recognized it and stuck with journalism. But really, I wasn’t very good at it.
She switched gears in her life after obtaining her Masters in 1995 and entered politics. Her first foray began right in Washington DC when she moved into the basement of an apartment a few blocks from the Capitol and began working as a low level aide for Colorado representative Scott McInnis, giving White House tours and answering phones for constituents. A few months later she received an offer from Colorado Sixth District conservative Dan Schaefer to replace his outgoing press secretary. Dana accepted and she began her ascent into top of national punditry. It was in 1997 on an airplane flight back to Denver that she sat next to a man from England, Peter McMahon, incidentally a Republican, who would eventually become her husband. The two dated long distance and eloped to Liverpool England after Representative Schaefer retired in 1998. After a year in England, the couple returned to the US where they settled in San Diego and Dana performed consultancy work for a high-tech firm Porter Novelli. But when George W. Bush was elected in 2000, she couldn't keep herself away from politics any longer.
"George W. Bush seemed like a different kind of politician, and I wanted in," she recalled in 5280 magazine.
She started as a spokesperson for the Department of Justice in 2001 and then after two years quickly climbed to a position as White House staff as the associate director of communications for the Council on Environmental Quality. She was awarded the position of Deputy Press Secretary in 2005 and held this position until 2007 when she was asked to take over duties for then Whitehouse Press Secretary Tony Snow, who tragically began the final descent in his ill-fated battle with colon cancer and resigned in March of 2007. Snow died in 2008 and Dana had taken over his duties for well over year before that and she remained in place until the end of the Bush era in January 2009.
Today, Dana is continuing to pursue various projects that move her life forward. After first and foremost being a regular Fox News Contributor on Hannity, she remains a chief issues counselor in some capacity for the Global Public Relations firm Burson-Marsteller. She also posts her thoughts and current activities on her site danaperinoandco.com. She continues to give speeches and write political articles on current political events. She was also nominated for a position on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a government agency that oversees the dissemination of American broadcast media across the world, ironically by Barack Obama in 2009. She was confirmed by the Senate on June 30, 2010.
"I’ve lived in a lot of places and have spent a long time in Washington, D.C.," she says on the site. "But I call the West my home. I was born in Wyoming and raised in Colorado. My family still lives in both places and includes city dwellers in Denver, small businesses owners in Casper and Rawlins, and ranchers in the Black Hills of Wyoming in a small town called Newcastle. While in Newcastle in the fall of 2009 I was treated to an amazing performance – the students of the Middle School recite the entire Constitution…and I mean entire, amendments and all…every morning to start their day. You won’t find that in many other places in America!"
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