I was a tomboy who liked to play rough just like my two older brothers. That's probably why I liked the athletic part of skating - especially the jumping!

But it seems that the judging maybe they shouldn't at least see the practices all week long. That can taint the way they go into the judging and the outlook of what's going to happen, instead of just watching those four minutes and judging on those minutes alone.

I started skating when I was six years old.

It wasn't always easy getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to the rink. Sometimes I wanted to just go back to sleep.

My parents never pressured me to skate. They always said I could quit if I wanted to. They only expected me to skate when they had already paid for the expensive lessons. But, otherwise they said I could do what I wanted to do.

Even now, my husband Jerry, our son Matthew and I live only five minutes away from my parents home, and my brothers live about ten minutes away. It's been great having such a supportive family.

I worked also, doing things such as our paper route and, later on, waitressing.