After Ann Pearson graduated from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1957, she worked in San Francisco for a year, keeping sales books and saving money for a summer in Europe. Her next goal was to try journalism; and, in the latter part of 1958, she was hired by Morgan Coe as a reporter for the Daily Alaska Empire in Juneau. During 1959, she also took on assignments as a UPI stringer, primarily covering the Alaska Legislature for the Anchorage Daily News. While working in Juneau, under the byline Ann H. Pearson, she reported on subjects associated with Alaska’s year of statehood. In 1960, she moved on to cover legislatures in Oregon and California for UPI, eventually covering the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., before retiring for a decade to start a family. Later, she returned to journalism in the Washington, D.C., area as a medical reporter.