In a much needed break from the Civil War and Suffrage history lesson, I was in the mood for a feel-good lesbian story. So, I bring to you the bio of Rachel Maddow. While I knew she was cute and funny and all that, I did not know that she was the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes Scholarship. I guess she's smart, too! Here's a little bit more about her-- you never know whyat Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow, is a school program administrator from Newfoundland, Canada. She has one older brother, David. Her father is of Russian and Dutch descent and her mother is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow's mother was raised a strict Roman Catholic, and Maddow herself grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and played three sports in high school. Referencing John Hughes films, she describes herself in high school as "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl." A graduate of Castro Valley High School in Castro Valley, California, she attended Stanford University. While a freshman, she was outed by the college newspaper when an interview with her was published by the student newspaper before she could tell her parents. Maddow earned a degree in public policy from Stanford in 1994. At graduation she was awarded the John Gardner Fellowship. She was also the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. In 2001, she earned a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in politics from Oxford University. Her thesis is titled HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons (supervisor: Dr Lucia Zedner). She was the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes scholarship. Maddow's first radio hosting job was at WRNX (100.9 FM) in Holyoke, Massachusetts, after she entered and won a contest the station held to find a new on-air personality. She was hired to co-host WRNX's morning show, The Dave in the Morning Show. She went on to host Big Breakfast on WRSI, in Northampton, Massachusetts, for two years. She left the show in March 2004 to join the new Air America. There she hosted Unfiltered along with Chuck D (of the hip hop group Public Enemy) and Lizz Winstead (co-creator of The Daily Show), until its cancellation in March 2005. Two weeks after the cancellation of Unfiltered in April 2005, Maddow's weekday two-hour radio program, The Rachel Maddow Show, began airing; in March 2008 it gained an hour, broadcasting from 6 to 9 p.m. EST with David Bender filling in the third hour for the call-in section, when Maddow was on TV assignment. In September 2008, the show's length returned to two hours when Maddow began a nightly MSNBC television program. In February 2009, after renewing her contract with Air America, Maddow returned to the 5 am hour-long slot. Her last Air America show was on January 21, 2010, two weeks before its owners filed for bankruptcy. In August 2008, MSNBC announced The Rachel Maddow Show would replace Verdict with Dan Abrams in the channel's 9 p.m. slot the following month. Following its debut, the show topped Countdown as the highest rated show on MSNBC on several occasions. After being on air for more than a month, Maddow's program doubled the audience that hour. Early reviews for her show were mostly positive. Los Angeles Times writer Matea Gold stated Maddow "finds the right formula on MSNBC," and The Guardian writes Maddow has become the "star of America's cable news." Associated Press columnist David Bauder said she's "[Keith] Olbermann's political soul mate" and the Olbermann-Maddow shows are a "liberal two-hour block."She's been in People Magazine, The Guardian, and The New York Observer, and has appeared on the TV shows The View and Charlie Rose.
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