Broadcast journalist Linda Ellerbee (1944–2016), from Bryan, Texas, was known for her concise writing style, wry wit, and direct manner. She helped turn network news into something more than, in her words, “the gospel according to cute.”

She wrote honestly about her stay at the Betty Ford Clinic for alcohol dependency. In 1992, she discovered lumps on both breasts and faced a bold, courageous decision: a bilateral mastectomy. “I got sober in '89,” she explained. “And I felt very strongly at that time that this gift of sobriety was not coincidental.”

The Emmy-winning host of Nickelodeon’s Nick News, she inspired young viewers to be curious, brave, and informed. Her colleague Ted Koppel once said, “What can you say about Linda Ellerbee? The woman is raucous and irreverent and writes like a dream.”

“I’ve been the luckiest journalist in America,” she reflected. “I’ve been forced to reconsider every assumption I carried and forced to look at the world again with new eyes.”

Linda’s heart, her fearless, honest spirit reminds us that bravery isn’t about the absence of fear, but the deep courage to live life out loud anyway.