Lauren Diedrich says every story she has covered has taught her something that has stayed with her through her career.

The general assignment reporter can't pick just one favorite story that she's covered.

The Bay Village, Ohio, native graduated cum laude from Ohio University and worked at KWQC-TV in the Quad Cities, covering portions of Iowa and Illinois. She reported and anchored there.

The Associated Press awarded Lauren first place for her coverage of spot news in Illinois in 2005. She also was awarded the Iowa Broadcast News Association's first place award in the same year. Lauren also won first place by Ohio's Society of Professional Journalists for in-depth reporting.

Lauren, whose first job was cleaning kennels at her father's animal clinic, said she would be a pediatrician if she were not in television.

Favorites:

Food: Everything but olives
Movies: "Garden State," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"
Books: "White Noise," by Don DeLillo; "The Da Vinci Code," by Dan Brown
Music: "From classical to pop music, I like it all."
Hobbies: Speaking Spanish, training for 5K runs, half-marathons, traveling
Sport: Ohio State football
Travel Destination: Interlochen, Switzerland
Central Ohio Place: The Hocking Hills area, Put-in-Bay
NBC Show: "The Office"