Super Fan

Valerie Adams Henderson

Every child talks into a fan, but I did it for hours and considered our beige box fan to be a friend, naming her Irlene after my favorite Mandrell sister. (I was an only child, and my bar for companionship was low.) I’d stick my tongue through the plastic cage that separated me from the blade until I was a millimeter from a life-altering injury, then do a victory dance to show Irlene who was boss. If I had a fan friend now, I’d name her Whirlene Fandrell, but it took me 40 more years to come up with that.

Valerie Adams Henderson has been a professional wordsmith for companies ranging from Reuters and Viacom to the Olympics and CrossFit for more than two decades. She’s ghostwritten dozens of articles and televised speeches for an eclectic collection of public figures and recently finished her first memoir in an attempt to put words in her own mouth versus someone else’s. Originally from rural Virginia, Valerie resides in Salt Lake City with her husband and their blended family of five kids, three dogs, and one bionic cat. In her free time, she is a voracious consumer of travel writing and queso and a fan of three things for which Utah is famous: independent film, hiking, and weak beer. Read more of her writing on Substack.