The Stunning Transformation Of Dana Perino

Dana Marie Perino was born in May 1972, in Evanston, a small town in Wyoming. According to Travel Wyoming, the city is best known for its outdoor recreational opportunities, including fishing, hiking, kayaking, and camping. Evanston also encompasses portions of both the Unita Mountains and Bear River. While she and her parents moved to Parker, Colorado shortly after Perino was born, she still visited family in nearby Wyoming throughout her childhood. In speaking with The Tennessean in 2019 about her grandparents' cattle ranch, Perino said, "I remember my grandfather telling me, 'This is the most beautiful country in the world.'"

While Perino later went on to live in urban areas in her adult life, such as Washington, D.C. and New York City, the more rural country life has always stuck with her. In a 2023 interview with the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Perino said, "I gravitate toward news in the state, though I find that keeping in touch with family is a great way to know what's going on out there."

Dana Perino's early exposure to media and politics served her well throughout high school and beyond. In fact, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Perino earned a scholarship that paved her way to attending college, all thanks to national debate and speech team victories. 

As such, she went on to attend Colorado State University Pueblo, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications. She also minored in both political science and Spanish. "My experience at CSU Pueblo helped shape me into who I am today, both professionally and personally," Perino said in a statement as part of a press release from her alma mater. Formerly known as the University of Southern Colorado during the time Perino attended, the school itself is relatively small, with 4,000 students, per the same press release. According to IMDb, Perino worked on the school's debate team, as well as a reporter and anchor for their PBS affiliate. Perino went on to attend the University of Illinois Springfield, where she obtained a master's degree in public affairs reporting in 1995. 

Dana Perino's time in San Diego with husband Peter McMahon was short-lived, as she was called back to Washington, D.C. shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Previously, Perino had worked on Capitol Hill for Colorado Representatives Scott McInnis and then Dan Schaefer. 

After 9/11, Perino and McMahon moved to D.C., and this time Perino worked directly with the George W. Bush administration. This first included work in the Department of Justice, where Perino was a press spokesperson, according to White House archives from the administration. She also worked in other capacities within the White House, including the Associate Director of Communications for the administration's Council on Environmental Quality. After this, she served as a special assistant to President Bush, and then Deputy Press Secretary. It would seem that Perino's childhood dream of working at the White House came true. In fact, according to her alma mater, Colorado State University Pueblo, Perino worked there for a total of seven years. 

While Dana Perino worked nearly a year-and-a-half as White House press secretary through the end of George W. Bush's term as president, she accomplished a great deal for the administration both inside and outside of her role. Later, in a 2015 memoir called "And the Good News Is ... Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side," Perino described her time as press secretary in detail. In excerpts reported by Politico, she discussed the physical toll of the job, writing, "The last seven months were the hardest ... I couldn't sleep without a pill, my stomach wanted only bland foods, and I often forgot to eat until my assistant made me order something."

Not only did Perino fulfill her duties as press secretary, but she also wrote in her memoir that she even served in an unexpected role. "On trips ... with a skeletal staff, I doubled as the makeup artist," she wrote. Perino also experienced drama during a press conference in Baghdad in December 2008. At the time, an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe towards President George W. Bush, according to The New York Times. While Bush escaped injury, Perino herself got injured during the chaos that unfolded. "[T]hree photojournalists I'd worked with for years ... told me about a pact they'd made not to release any photographs of my injury — out of respect for me," she later wrote in her memoir.

In 2010, then-President Barack Obama appointed Dana Perino to a prestigious position at the Broadcasting Board of Governors. First established as the Voice of America in 1942 during World War II and having since consolidated with other government media branches, the agency's mission is to provide oversight over government-related broadcast news except for military news, according to the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Perino served in her board role until the end of 2012 when her term expired. "I am honored to have been chosen to serve, though I'm more overwhelmed by the friendships I've made," Perino said in a statement to the U.S. Agency for Global Media. "The city of Washington, D.C. could use many more of you working to steer structural and content improvements at the BBG to support its role in spreading freedom of expression and self-determination around the world."

In addition to her appointment to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Perino was also offered a part-time adjunct position at The George Washington University. Here, she joined the school's Strategic Public Relations faculty where she taught classes in political and public affairs communications. "I am looking forward to having an engaging dialogue with students in this dynamic program," Perino said in a press release in July 2010. "While no one has all the answers for managing communications with all of the new ways we talk to one another, this collective group discussion will get us several steps closer to better practices."

In 2015, Dana Perino made the transition from helping to publish books and publicizing them to writing her own. Her memoir, "And the Good News Is ... Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side" was published in April of that year, and it gave readers an inside look into her time as White House Press Secretary. As Politico previously reported, Perino not only described the physical and mental exhaustion from the job, but she also caused some controversy when she criticized one of the former men who held the post, Scott McClellan. Perino wrote, per Politico, "Despite Scott's hard work and determination, his briefings were unnecessarily heated and often ineffective." 

However, Perino has written on other topics besides politics and public service. Among one of her more surprising titles was a 2016 book about her beloved Hungarian Vizsla, Jasper, called "Let Me Tell You About Jasper ... How My Best Friend Became America's Dog." "I didn't set out to make Jasper a star; it just happened, and almost overnight," Perino wrote in the book's introduction. "I wanted to write this book because I'm touched by the human connection we can make with each other through our dogs."

Dana Perino went to school for both her bachelor's and master's degrees. However, based on her achievements and service, the Board of Governors from her alma mater, Colorado State University Pueblo, decided to award Perino with an honorary doctorate in Human Letters in May 2023. The announcement was made in a January 2023 press release from the school, which also explained that Perino was scheduled to be the commencement speaker that spring. "We are excited to welcome Dana back to CSU Pueblo," the university's president, Timothy Mottet, said in the press release. "Her career has served as an inspiration for our students and she has been an incredible mentor providing opportunities for them to see her studio in New York." 

Yet it wasn't just leadership and the governing board of the university that felt Perino was deserving of the honor. Perino's former college roommate, Andrea Aragon, told The Pueblo Chieftain, "She certainly has elevated herself and the status of the university by her success, and so it's a great opportunity for us to honor that and her hard work ... I'm not surprised at all. She was always extremely smart and was a sponge — she could look at something one time and remember it." Perino was indeed honored by the award. She also joked in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that she was going to make fellow Fox News anchor Greg Gutfeld call her "Doctor Perino."

Dana Perino's expertise in politics and political messaging took on a new life when she helped moderate the second Republican presidential primary debate in September 2023. Before the debate took place, Perino provided insights on the key opportunity for the seven debate participants to talk more about what their campaigns stood for, rather than discussing current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. "They all agree about Joe Biden," she told Politico at the time. "The way to have a breakout moment is not about what you're going to say about the current president. It's about how you think that you would be a better president than the one we have now, or the one that we've had before that is running again."

While deemed less chaotic than the first debate, Trump still remained the Republican front-runner afterward, even though he didn't participate in it. At the end of the debate, Perino asked the seven candidates on stage who they would vote out of the race, but none took the bait. "I know they didn't want to actually write down and say who they would vote off the island, but I promise you that their campaigns ... they call us every day and they try and convince us that somebody should be voted off the island," Perino said on Fox News the next day, as reported by The Hill. Even though the candidates didn't answer her question, Perino will undoubtedly keep asking for the information voters want to know as they make decisions for 2024.