As tough as our jobs can be sometimes, there are also some perks. Occasionally meeting celebrities is one of them. And that was the case this week, as Toby Keith paid a visit to Denver to open his new “I Love This Bar and Grill” in the Shops at Northfield Stapleton. Being the celebrity hounds that we are, my photographer/field producer Megan Valente and I put in a request to do an interview with him. We’re both country music fans and Toby Keith is a well-known supporter of our troops. So, we figured other people would be interested to hear from him as well! The interview aired last week, but we thought we’d take you along for the trip in blog form as well!

Stacia: First things first, before we could go to the interview… we had to work our normal shifts. For me, that’s getting to work at 3:30am. But, Megan, you get here way earlier than me!

Megan: My normal shift starts at 2am but I was so nervous I couldn’t decide what to wear I was late so I started editing the morning show at 3am. My normal shift is 1:30am to 10am. I didn’t know what to wear because I wanted to impress Toby Keith.   So I brought half of my closet in the back of my car. I thank Dustin, another photographer, for helping me chose what to wear to impress Toby! I think it worked!!

Stacia: So, we arrived at the new restaurant with smiles on our faces and dressed to impress!

Stacia: The grand opening wasn’t actually open to the public. It was for media and radio station contest winners. But they rolled out the red-carpet anyway. And we were glad to pretend we were VIPs! Check out our red carpet pics as we entered the restaurant...

 

Stacia: Once we walked inside the restaurant, we had to get checked in. That meant actually showing our IDs. But they gave us these huge media passes!

Megan:  The media passes were awesome! That is one thing I will actually keep and put in my scrap book.

Stacia: Once we got inside, we got to work! Toby wasn’t scheduled to arrive for about an hour. But that didn’t mean we could just hang out!

Megan:  Well Stacia was talking to Toby’s PR people. So I got the camera out and went around the Restaurant and shot video.   

Stacia: Since it was technically lunch time and the restaurant was offering samples to everyone… we did take a few minutes to eat a little something. I loved the mozzarella sticks. Megan, what did you have that was so good??

Megan: Well I loved the fried Mac and Cheese! It all looked super good though. I’m sad I didn’t get to try the fried bologna sandwich. : (

Stacia: Oh I know!! That’s Toby Keith’s favorite thing on the menu! (Which we found out later.)

Stacia: And while we waited, we were checking out the restaurant. It’s actually really cool!

Megan: Yes, it was and it was huge! They had a dance floor and huge bar but also many places that people could sit and enjoy their food and not even know a bar was there. If I didn’t have this cool job I would love to work there. It’s definitely a place I will go when I’m off work!

Stacia: We were keeping our eyes on the clock. Toby Keith was supposed to arrive at 12:30pm. But celebs are notoriously late. To our surprise… he was early!!! And he was ushered into a VIP room surrounded by bodyguards. Here's us with the bodyguards in the background.

 

Stacia: Then Toby came out to greet the crowd and take a few questions. But while he was doing that, we had to get in place for our interview! We had to be ready to go, because we were only going to have a few minutes with him. (He actually had to get on a plane for a concert in Canada that very evening!) So, we got ourselves in place and he came walking in! I was kind of nervous!

Megan: But you couldn’t even tell Stacia was nervous but me on the other hand you could. I was shaking and had to run the camera!

Stacia: Whatever. Haha You were great, girl! And he really was super nice. He was very gracious. He joked around with us. And he took pics with us too, after the interview was over! Even me in my Oklahoma State hat! (Toby is a notorious University of Oklahoma fan. So, we’re big-time rivals!)

Megan: Loving country and growing up listening to his music, I thought he’d be tough and not very friendly. But I was totally WRONG! He was so nice and very tall. I’m 5’5” and as you can tell in my picture he is about a foot taller than me.

Stacia: All in all, it was a really cool experience.

Megan: And totally worth working over-time!