Sandy Hill

Sandra Marth Hill (born February 2, 1946) is an American television journalist and Miss Washington; she is also a writer and commercial real estate broker.

Early life Born Sandra Lee Marth in Centralia, Washington, she was raised on a farm there. Her father, John Marth, helped build the local Lutheran church. She was heavily involved with music and the church from an early age. She was smart and studious, graduating from Centralia High School near the top of her class. However, she was a self-proclaimed social outcast. That did not stop her from being crowned Miss Lewis County in 1965 and Miss Washington in 1966. She attended the University of Washington in Seattle on scholarship, where she studied Spanish and joined Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.

After college, Hill worked in human resources as an employment recruiter for Seattle First National Bank in Seattle, where she met Craig Hill, a junior banker at the time; the two married in 1969.

News career In the 1960s, women were virtually nonexistent in television news, with the exception of the occasional "weather girl." Hill had intended on going into international relations. When she accepted that position, she became the first female anchor in Los Angeles, working alongside Jerry Dunphy, Bill Stout and Joseph Benti. Unfortunately, due to poor results from a focus group, she and a number of her fellow anchors were dismissed from KNXT in 1976. She immediately received an offer from the ABC owned-and-operated station nowrap|KABC. she went on to work for ABC Sports and Wide World of Sports.

In 1982, Hill was asked by CBS to return to KNXT in Los Angeles as an anchor for the 4:30 p.m. edition of Channel 2 News. She would later succeed Connie Chung (who went to NBC News in 1983) on KNXT's 11:00 p.m. newscast. Her co-anchors during her second stint at KNXT included Ralph Story, Jess Marlow and John Schubeck. However, in 1986, Hill was dismissed again by the station (which had changed its call letters to KCBS two years earlier), Nevertheless, she returned as the co-host of The CBS Morning News later that year. Hill also would replace Mariette Hartley during the final weeks of CBS' short-lived The Morning Program In 1988, she started with Home on ABC. She also worked with the British government to create a travelog for Britain that eventually aired on PBS. In 1994, she made a cameo appearance playing a fictional version of herself in the opening minutes of the science fiction film Without Warning, which was formatted as a simulated news broadcast.

Personal life Along with her husband and son, Hill returned to their home state of Washington . She is a hobbyist author, but won the Literary Contest held by PNWA for her book, Dance While the Moon Shines. The book is a tribute to her family, and their moonshining roots. Her husband and son continue to encourage Sandy to write her own story as one of the first women in television news.