Everybody has something he or she wonders about -- whether a piece of artwork or furniture, an old toy, a packet of letters or an odd curiosity. That's what attracts a lot of people to Antiques Roadshow, said Judy Matthews '72, senior publicist for the popular PBS television series produced by WGBH in Boston. "It's a very democratic experience," she said. Of course, the potential for hitting the jackpot is also big part of the show's appeal, she noted -- it puts a whole new spin on "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."

The variety, quality and level of scholarship involved in working at WGBH -- that's what attracts Matthews to the public television station and has kept her there for nearly 25 years. In addition to Antiques Roadshow, Matthews has worked on This Old House, Evening at Pops, Arthur and Victory Garden, plus myriad specials and miniseries.

"When you undertake to promote a program, you have to steep yourself in that material; it's like taking a little master's degree course in a variety of subjects," she said. "I've had to get up to speed on the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Great Depression, child development and, now, antiques."

In many respects, Matthews sees her career at WGBH as the perfect complement to her studies as an anthropology major at Binghamton. "Fascination with people's behavior -- psychology, culture and trends -- stands you in good stead when working in TV," said Matthews, who also holds a master's in broadcast journalism from Boston University ("I'm drawn to institutions of higher learning called ÔBU,'" she joked). In fact, she's found that a lot of anthropology majors work in TV.

Stein displays a slice of plant fossil from the Devonian period dating from 410 million to 363 million years ago.

"Anthropology is the perfect background for a career in TV," she noted. "Good TV has its finger on the pulse of culture. Producers who approach appealing to contemporary audiences in that scientific and scholarly way are the most successful at figuring it out.

"Technology and anthropology are intersecting more and more," she continued, "and anthropology becomes more a part of the culture as a tool. TV may be the latest form of tribal communication."

Probably, Antiques Roadshow is more obviously anthropological than any other show Matthews has worked on, she said. "For Americans, the notion of material value enhances their interest in objects, though it's certainly not the only hook," she said. "People also have a tremendous interest in their personal family history and in American history. In the past year, an intense spotlight has shone on what it is to be American and how our stuff reflects that. We've seen themes that are repeated through history -- for example, we're not the first generation that has displayed the American flag or felt attacked from the outside. Those emerge out of the stuff people bring in. We don't have any control over what people bring; they're completely randomly selected. Yet these things that are peculiarly American emerge out of the artifacts."

Given Matthews' interest in human behavior and culture, it's no coincidence that this has been one of the most exciting shows she's worked on, she said. But, she added, it's also just "fun to work on a show that has attracted almost 16 million people a week, which is unprecedented in public TV."

That kind of popularity has also brought its challenges. Antiques Roadshow was embroiled in a public scandal two years ago when it emerged that during the show's first season, two appraisers had staged a couple of appraisals, in complete violation of the ethics and the intent of the program.

"That was a tough moment," said Matthews. "Appraisals are spontaneous exchanges between two individuals who've never met each other. An appraiser is not supposed to have any prior knowledge of the owner of the object or the object itself."

Although the show immediately severed its relationship with those appraisers, because of the show's popularity, it became a huge news story. "Since then, we've developed very stringent guidelines regarding appraisers that they have to sign," said Matthews, who is proud of the way she and WGBH handled the incident. "The fact that we took quick action, admitted we'd made a mistake and acknowledged we'd trusted people when the trust wasn't earned, made a difference in how the story played out in the media. We still got a lot of attention, but in short order it became clear that Antiques Roadshow had been the victim of fraud -- not the perpetrator."

No doubt Matthews' skill and experience as a mediator and negotiator played a key role in her ability to handle this crisis so well. Through her years as shop steward and, now, as president of the independent union at WGBH, Matthews has developed mediation and conflict resolution skills that "come in handy on a moment-by-moment basis for anything that requires a combination of persuasion, compromise and conflict resolution," as she put it.

If the popularity of Antiques Roadshow has its challenges, it also has ample rewards. For example, Matthews has had the opportunity to meet a lot of scholars and celebrities from different fields. A peak moment she recalled was the time Dan Rather and crew appeared on the set in Tulsa to cover the show for 60 Minutes. "He was lovely -- fascinated by what we were doing, and like a kid in a candy shop about people and their antiques," she said. "It was a lot of fun getting the attention of the real celebrities."

Day in, day out, the best part of the job for Matthews is the trust and mutual respect she shares with the producers. "I work with some of the best people on TV, and for the first time in my career I feel fully a part of the production team," she said. "That's rarely achieved, a real gift for a PR professional. It's my crowning achievement."

Matthews attended Harpur College from 1967 to 1972, years she described as tumultuous for the country and for herself. She dropped out of school in 1968 and headed for San Francisco, the hub of the counterculture. She came back to school in 1969, "an incredibly incendiary and tragic year," as she put it. "With the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the Ôsummer of love' became something much angrier and more serious. I wanted to retreat back to the safety of my life as I'd known it before; I took school much more seriously afterwards." Mathews' son, Zachary, is a police officer in Houston. "Anybody who knew me in the old days would be amused at what my son does for a living," she said. "ÔClassic ex-hippie produced conservative offspring -- a Michael J. Fox clichŽ." Matthews and her husband, David, live in Boston.