For some, meeting a Hollywood celebrity is a dream come true, but what if you met them while you are at work?

Greene County resident Linn Price met the actress and singer Olivia Newton-John in the mid 1990s while working at the Arctic Animal Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. Price tells Raccoon Valley Radio she and her husband lived there for three years while he was still in the military. She likewise was in the military as a vet tech but was discharged from the army after a knee injury and took a job at the veterinary hospital in Anchorage.

Shortly after she was hired, Price says they found out Newton-John was coming to their facility.

“Olivia Newton-John actually filmed at our clinic for an entire week about us rehabilitating bald eagles. And it was aired on television in Australia on her wildlife program she had there for a couple of years.”   

Price points out the camera crews were able to do the show in the back of their facility and they could still do their day-to-day operations in the front. However, owner and founder of the Bird Treatment and Learning Center where Newton-John was filming the eagles Dr. James Scott didn’t want any of his employees saying anything to anyone while she was in town. Price says she was allowed to watch the filming and talks about the kind of person Newton-John was.

“She was very personable. She did not act stuck up at all like some celebrities would be. She’d be  just like, your normal animal lover, just hanging out in the back of the vet clinic. Dr. Scott forbid us to talk to her but she talked to us. One day I was doing the doggie dental and she came up to me and said, ‘Oh, you do doggie dentals here too?’ and I’m like, ‘Yes Miss John.’ It was quite the experience.”    

Newton-John passed away earlier this week at the age of 73.