American television anchor, newspaper correspondent, journalism teacher in China and author. A woman who deals with ideals, she smuggled film of the Tiananmen Square massacre out of China. Some of her friends and students were among those shot by the Red Army in Tiananmen Square in Beijing outside the Great Hall of the People on June 3 and 4, 1989. Houston took her 8MM film and disguised it as Neil Diamond tapes, smuggling them out of China in order to let the world know what was going on.
Houston’s family includes her mother, stepfather, sister and step-brother. Her mom was a highly influential person in her early life, stressing education and Holly graduated from the University of Southern California with a BA in International Relations and a BA in Journalism. Print journalism, her first love, led her to a newspaper career, but people commented on her being a pretty blond and thought she wouldn’t be taken seriously. Leaving Santa Monica, CA for a job in television in Butte, MT she was a jack -of-all-trades; interviewing, editing and then anchoring for the news. She later moved to Billings, MT and then to Spokane, WA where she felt disillusioned because people weren’t as interested in her reporting ability as they were in her fashion and hairdo. Being a TV anchor for ten years and reporting on killings and the thrills that sell on TV, she became very callous because good news stories didn’t inspire people.
Going to Hong Kong on a Rotary Scholarship in late summer of 1988 led to a chance to teach English composition and journalism in Shanghai. She had written articles for the Cincinnati Post on the democracy movement in China and her students worried about her being so actively involved in the movement when security guards began to follow her everywhere. When she returned to America she felt her greatest achievement was bringing seven Chinese students into the United States. Houston moved into a Montana cabin with no running water for six months where she wrote about her experiences and enlightenment in “Eating the Glow Worm.”
In December 1993 she became the Executive Director and spokesperson for the Basin Mining Information Office located in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Now, on the other side of the microphone, she realizes that nonprofit organizations and the government have their own agendas as she talks about problems in the ecosystem and Superfund cleanups.