This is an unusual “Tale From Sip and Go Girl” for several reasons. One, I’m using the full name of the gentleman in question. Two, it’s not a real date. It’s only one I thought I had.

The “Tale from Sip and Go Girl” is the column nearly every Thursday that takes you along on a date I had sometime in my life that more often than not led to nowhere.

I was trying to remember a last minute lunch engagement I had years ago during college with a fellow journalism student who became a reporter for a good-sized newspaper after we graduated.

I write down nearly everything in a calendar that also serves as a diary or journal. I was sure I could find the name of this journalism student with whom I shared a sip and go.

I was flipping through those notebooks for information regarding the student when I ran across a name I had written.

“Call Darryl Compton.”

I paused, looked up from the calendar, and thought “That name is totally familiar. I must be remembering his byline from the paper. That must be him.”

I flipped further through the book. I found nothing regarding a date with anyone named “Darryl Compton.” I did see I had written about a weekend conference I attended. It was for the Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA). In 2010 it changed its name to Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).

I spent a couple minutes traveling down Memory Lane and remembering how little I knew about TV news then and how hopeful and excited I was to meet new people and talk about journalism with real adults. They had jobs as TV news producers, reporters, anchors, and assignment editors. Surely, they must all be professional and important people. Now, years later and after spending most of my career in TV news, I do not find the world untouchable. I love it, but it’s like a second home and the majority of my coworkers are delightful goofballs.

But the mystery of Darryl Compton remained. I recall being nervous to call him. I remember I had to do so by a certain time.

I then recalled the conversation. He was affable, helpful, professional, and almost like a university instructor in his tone with me on the phone.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” I said. I remembered exactly the true identity of Darryl Compton.

Darryl Compton is a broadcasting legend in Northern California. He was an Emmy-award winning newsroom manager in San Francisco for years and branched out into other communication related management, taking advantage of the rocking and rolling that goes on in the tech-world of Silicon Valley. I had written my note about calling him because he was overseeing aspects of the convention I was attending.

The mystery man has been solved. The search also allowed me to recall a very hopeful and optimistic time in my life and I feel revitalized by those feelings the convention memory stirred.

I still, however, cannot remember the name of the journalism cohort who took me to lunch.

For more informtion regarding my mystery man, visit http://www.broadcastlegends.com/compton.html