Big Anchor Shuffle in Wichita
/
As FTVLive told you, KAKE (Wichita) Anchor Jeff Herndon left the station for WFLD in Chicago.
He's leaving has triggered a series of personnel shifts at the ABC affiliate.
The station is filling the void left by Herndon by moving existing personnel to different newscasts, but it’s backfilling with some new faces, too.
Veteran anchor Larry Hatteberg is now co-anchoring all of KAKE’s weeknight newscasts, at 4, 5, 6 and 10 p.m., essentially adding Herndon’s shifts to most of his own.
Hatteberg in recent years has anchored KAKE’s earlier-evening newscasts and its weekend evening newscasts.
With more hours during the week, Hatteberg will no longer be anchoring weekend newscasts. Mike Iuen is moving from “Good Morning Kansas” to cover those. Meteorologist Ben Pringle is moving with him.
Jemelle Holopirek remains as “Good Morning Kansas” anchor and KAKE has added El Dorado native Frank Waugh as a morning meteorologist.
Annette Lawless was hired to anchor a new Sunday-morning version of “Good Morning Kansas” and will also serve as a reporter throughout the week. She fills the position that opened when Jared Cerullo left KAKE in June. (Cerullo has since filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against KAKE and its parent company, Gray Television Group Inc.)
On the sports desk, KAKE recently hired Kansas native Jake Schlegel to replace Chris Frye, who left in July to take a job in Arkansas with Fox affiliate KNWA.
