Photo by Nicki — Virginia Roberts

At her desk in the morgue of the San Francisco Eagle, Nicki Porter often wished that she could be a part of the excitement in the big, noisy city room, that wonderful magic world of rewrite men, headline scribes, copy boys, reporters -- and handsome Jenk Jarvis.

But none knew better than Nicki that jobs on big city newspapers weren't open to novices -- girls only nineteen, with a high school diploma and a single year at San Francisco State College to their credit. Exciting jobs on metropolitan newspapers were for older, more worldly girls like Caroline North and Katy Kitchcraft, or the type like Deb Christy, who had rich socialite parents and one of those coveted Marin College journalism degrees.