WVEC talent Kristina Zverjako moved to America when she was 11 years old from the Republic of Estonia, on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Its neighbors are Russia and Latvia.

Her goal was to become a Journalist and at WVEC she is a jack off all trades. 

She's listed on the WVEC website as  “digital content producer, social media reporter.” But she does much more at the station. 

Zverjako sometimes anchors WVEC’s newscasts. She sometimes does the weather. She sometimes reports on rush-hour traffic, alerting drivers to trouble ahead. And in the afternoons on the Channel 13 newscasts she does her “trending now” features.

The Virginia Pilot says that Zverjako has no accent. Not a trace. What happened to it?

“To be quite honest, I’m not sure how I lost my accent. When I moved to the U.S., I tried to fully immerse myself into the society, into the culture. Perhaps that did the trick. I also believe that my desire to pursue a career in journalism and television news motivated me to work on losing my accent. I didn’t want it to distract viewers from my work,” she said.

Whenever her family gathers, they speak Russian.

Zverjako was just 11 when she and her sister arrived in the U.S. with their parents, settling in Phoenix in the middle of July.

“My first thought was, ‘Wow! It’s hot here,’ ” she said. (The average temperature in Estonia in July is 61.5 degrees.)

Of leaving Estonia for the U.S., Zverjako recalled, “My parents were seekers of the American dream. They sacrificed everything to move us to the U.S. Times were tough in parts of Europe. Estonia did not provide us the opportunities our parents wanted us to have.” Zverjako graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University.

While she was growing up in Estonia, her father read her the newspaper instead of bedtime stories.

“I loved it. I became curious about the world of news very early in life. Upon moving to Arizona, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, anything is possible in this country. I can become a journalist here.’ ”

And so she did, working at stations in Bakersfield, Calif., and Pensacola, Fla., before joining WVEC in June 2015.

“My husband’s job brought us to Hampton Roads. He’s a pilot in the Navy and my greatest supporter. He is extremely patient as I work my ever-changing schedule.”

Channel 13 News Director Doug Wieder compares Zverjako to a baseball player with multiple talents.

“She reports, she anchors, she does the traffic and covers social/digital media, and excels in all of them. 

Would she ever consider settling into one job at the station? Not likely.

“I’m thankful to be working for people who see my potential and allow me to grow within the industry,” said the woman who shares a home with two dogs and two cats. Don’t be surprised if you see her on the sports beat one day.