Not just because she’s a dancer, Lindsey Roznovsky knows when and how to move on, away or upward. Just 30, she’s already been a national entertainment journalist, prosports cheerleader, dancer and director. Formerly based in Nashville, where she was simultaneously a CMT (Country Music Television) reporter and producer and a Tennessee Titans cheerleader, she’s now a public relations manager for Roger Christian & Co. and an entertainment consultant for Spurs Sports and Entertainment. Originally from Lake Jackson, Roznovsky didn’t grow up planning any one single career. “I’ve always set short-term goals,” she says. “What’s important to me is to do something that makes people smile.”

Her success as a dancer and broadcaster represents a twin triumph over expectations. Born without a left ear, she has no hearing on that side. “The doctors told my parents there were so many things I wouldn’t be able to do, including learning to talk properly,” Roznovsky says. A series of surgeries constructed an outer ear for her, but she elected not to have surgery that would open an ear canal. “One slip, and my eyesight might be damaged,” she explains. With the support of her parents, Roznovsky was determined at an early age not to let her disability be her destiny. She took her first dance lessons at age 2, starting with ballet. “After that first year, I told my mom ballet was too quiet,” she says, smiling. “I started taking tap and loved it, because I could feel the rhythms.” Encouraged by her mother, a dancer and high-school cheerleading coach, she attended dance camps and conventions, learned jazz and other styles of dancing and made the dance teams in middle and high school.

“Everything I learned in the dance world the precision, the routine and the discipline has carried over into my professional life,” she says. She chose, however, not to pursue dance “too limiting” at Texas A&M University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in communications.

Roznovsky learned her broadcasting basics at A&M and as a reporter and producer for a news-talk station in the Bryan/College Station area. After graduation, she decided to take her skills to Nashville. For a singer “with a voice people like to listen to” who also writes songs, Music City seemed like a good fit. “I didn’t necessarily see a (singing) career,” she says. “I just wanted to see what path life would take me on.” Starting as an intern, she found success at the division of CMT that supplies country-music entertainment news to nearly 300 radio stations. There, she wrote, produced and co-hosted shows, averaging five celebrity interviews a week. As crowded as her CMT schedule was, Roznovsky wanted to return to performing and auditioned to become a Tennessee Titans cheerleader. She made the team in April, went to boot camps in June and July, then practiced four nights a week. For an eight-month period, she was going in to work at CMT at 4 a.m. to do live radio later in the morning and leaving at 6 p.m. for her other job. Fortunately, “CMT loved the fact that I was dancing for the Titans. It gave artists another way to relate to me.”

Although she could have tested her vocal skills at open-mike nights, Roznovsky decided against it. “That was the time when women my age, like Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood, were becoming stars.” she says. “I listened to their voices and thought, ‘They really have it.’” During her time in Nashville, Roznovsky started dating a close relative of a country-music star based in San Antonio. The couple planned to marry, and “We wanted to raise our children here.” At the same time, she had done nearly everything possible in her job at CMT, including marketing and promotions, so “I felt it was OK for me to leave.” Although she and her former boyfriend broke up only two months after she moved to San Antonio, Roznovsky decided to stay in Texas. Still recovering from a knee injury incurred in her last year as a Titans cheerleader, she tried out for the San Antonio Spurs Silver Dancers and made the finals. While healing after surgery, she did a stint as a Rampage Ice Girl and co-host for the San Antonio hockey team and has since been hired by the Spurs as an entertainment consultant.

For her full-time job, Roznovsky works as a public relations manager for Roger Christian & Co., where she takes the lead on the agency’s largest account, Armed Forces Entertainment. Reporting to the Department of Defense, her client sends entertainers to military installations, including remote places where “there are only 25 people who haven’t seen anyone but those 25 people for months.” The move to public relations was a natural progression. “While I was at CMT, people would tell me, ‘You should be a publicist; you’re so good at talking to people.’” Her current job turned out to be a good fit: “Having been a reporter and producer, I know what they want in music stories.” She also works as an instructor and director for a dance company. “My mental state now is that I’ve moved to the other side,” she says. “I can’t watch a routine without thinking about it from the director’s side.”

Currently in a relationship with someone who’s “equally busy,” she’s happy “juggling a lot at one time.” Looking ahead, Roznovsky still doesn’t want to pick just one profession: “I’m happy when I diversify myself.”

Paula Allen