Maria Arcega-Dunn admits she was a chatty child with a knack for telling stories. “I was the town crier,” says the 34-year-old Canada native. Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Arcega-Dunn capitalized on that talent, earning a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from the University of Calgary and a broadcasting degree from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and becaming the first Asian female television news anchor in Calgary.

Arcega-Dunn, a news anchor at Fox 6 News since 2002, has worked in CNN’s Asia Bureau in Hong Kong and in a variety of international television news markets — Global Canada, CTV and CBS, among others. She was reporting for CNN in July 1997 during “the handover,” the United Kingdom’s return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule.

Anchoring a news broadcast is much more than reading from a script, says Arcega-Dunn. “We’re really producers. We have to know what’s going on in the city and county all the time,” she says. “Reporting keeps me in touch and I get a rush from finding things out first.”

At home, Arcega-Dunn likes to paint, draw and enjoy time with her husband, Bernardo Dunn, a financial analyst for Citibank, and Nicholas, their 6-year-old son.