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Tricia Duffield

Tricia Duffield had her sights set on a career as a ballet dancer but flat feet and short legs meant that journalism was a more likely vocation.

After a short stint with the West Australian Ballet Company, she decided to pursue more academic interests and began a journalism degree course at Curtin University. She was offered a cadetship at the Sunday Independent newspaper, and quickly made her mark as one of its best investigative and feature journalists, winning Cadet of the Year, and travelling to Britain and the United States as Fashion Editor while still a teenager and a cadet reporter.

When Radio 6PR became a news and talk format, Tricia was an obvious choice to the team as a field reporter and newsreader. She returned to London as the station's UK correspondent and also worked as a freelance journalist there for two years. She returned to Australia when she was offered an on camera role with a new current affairs programme, Terry Willesee's Perth, which won the Logie for most outstanding local production three years running.

Tricia then ed a rival current affairs show, State Affair and was fill-in host and reporter for that programme. In 1985, she left the media to pursue business interests and to start a family. She was the co-founder of Energy Research Australia, one of the country's largest smart card manufacturers.

After having two sons, Luther and Jack, Tricia took on a new career as a fitness leader, winning the 1993 State Aerobic Championship and being nominated as just one of four Fitness Leaders of the Year the following year.