Oprah was born on a farm in 1954 to a poor family. Winfrey enjoyed reciting African-American poetry and became known as the "little speaker" in her town. When she was 12, Winfrey won $500 for a speech given at her father's church. From then on she wanted to "get paid to talk." When Winfrey was a teenager, her dream was put on hold. Some of her family's trusted men began to sexually abuse her. She lashed out in anger against the world by lying to her mother, running away from home, and stealing. Unaware of what Winfrey was going through, her mother sent her away to live with her father. If her mother had never sent her away, Oprah's life would have been very different. At age 17, Oprah Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant and was offered an on-air job at WVOL, a radio station for Nashville's African-American community. Oprah continued to work at WVOL into her early college years, but her television career was already taking off. She dropped out of school and signed with a local TV station as a reporter and anchor. In 1976, she moved to Baltimore to join WJZ-TV News as a co-anchor. There, she co-hosted her first talk show, People Are Talking, while continuing to serve as a host and reporter. In January 1984, she was invited to Chicago to host a half-hour morning show on WLS-TV. In less than a year, he turned AM Chicago into the hottest show