![]() I started here in Chicago in January of 1994. He went to management and said, “There’s this gal filling in on GMA, and I think we need to give her a shot.” We used to joke that I owe him 10 percent of my salary. He came to do live shots in Richmond, and I became bold enough to say, “How come you never have a woman fill in for you for the weather on GMA?” Soon after, he called and said, “You know what? You should be filling in for me on GMA.” After filling in on GMA in 1993, I immediately started getting phone calls from stations around the country… There was a gentleman who still has my heart, Jerry Taft. While I was in Richmond, I met a man by the name of Spencer Christian who did the weather for a very long time on Good Morning America (GMA). Another job came along in Youngstown, OH, and then a position in Richmond, VA. If you don’t take the risk, you’ll never know.” So, I took the risk, and I got the job, and I loved every single four months of it that I was there. I remember talking to my mom, and she said, “You never want to look back and regret. I going from a full-time job with benefits to making $5.50 an hour as the weekend weatherperson in Wheeling, WV. You’re doing this.” I had been doing some on-camera work at the time, so I applied for the job. I didn’t have a degree in meteorology (I later went back and got my meteorology certification through Mississippi State University), but he said, “Listen, you’re learning this. A meteorologist position in Wheeling, WV was advertised in a paper known as The Pittsburgh Press, and thenKDKA meteorologist Brian Sussman encouraged me to apply. I learned a lot about meteorology just by doing that. ![]() Just because I found it fascinating, I would hang out, on my own time, with one of the meteorologists. They would read really fun weather books to kids, books I really connected with, Little Cloud by Eric Carle. Fast-forward a bit.I did my internship at KDKA Radio…then I got a job at KDKATV in advertising and promotion.Part of my job was to accompany the talent to speaking engagements. I wanted to talk to people through media somehow. I grew up in Pittsburgh, home of KDKA Radio, the world’s first commercial radio station…I was so influenced by the medium. Retrieved March 20, 2018.I had this idea back in 7th grade that I wanted to go into broadcasting. ^ "New job title for ex-weatherman Jerry Taft: Uber driver".^ "ABC7's Jerry Taft to retire in January 2018".7's Deshler, Taft to forecast for radio". ^ Retired meteorologist Jerry Taft, ‘the face of ABC 7 weather’ for more than 3 decades, dies at 77 Chicago Tribune.^ a b c d "Jerry Taft, ABC7 meteorologist for 33 years, dies at 77"."ABC Meteorologist Jerry Taft Talks Weather, Military Service with Lemont Rotary Club". ^ a b c d e Luevano, Amanda (August 3, 2012).His children are Skylar, Storm, Danna and Jay. Taft died on July 23, 2020, in Chicago, at the age of 77. Īccording to the Chicago Sun-Times, Taft moved to Naples, Florida after his retirement with ABC 7 Chicago and worked as a part-time Uber driver. Taft was 19 when he married his high school sweetheart they had their first child not long afterwards. Taft's last day on air, after forecasting weather on Chicago television for 42 years, was Friday, January 19, 2018. On December 20, 2017, ABC 7 Chicago announced that Taft would retire in January 2018. Participants noted Taft's "no-nonsense delivery". He finished second to WBBM-TV's Steve Baskerville and ahead of Tom Skilling in a 1997 Chicago Sun-Times reader poll about Chicago meteorologists. The Chicago Tribune described Taft as "one of favorite weathermen". Taft also performed radio work, providing weather reports for WMAQ-AM and WLS-AM in the 1980s. He worked for 7 years at WMAQ-TV, Chicago's NBC affiliate then joined WLS-TV (ABC 7) in August 1984. ![]() Taft worked at KMOL-TV (now WOAI-TV) before moving to Chicago. ![]() His interest in the area was piqued during his time as a military pilot, when he was involved in a TV feature, flying with San Antonio weatherman Maclovio Perez of NBC affiliate KMOL-TV. He revealed that he had not initially aspired to be a television meteorologist. He eventually obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology from that institution in 1969. During his time there, he became a pilot and fought in the Vietnam War for a year. After studying at Wartburg College for one year, he got accepted into the Airman Education and Commissioning Program, which sent him to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Taft spent one year at Georgia Tech, before working as radar technician for the United States Air Force in Iowa. He worked for 34 years with WLS, and for 42 years as a broadcast meteorologist in the Chicago media market. Jerry Taft (Ma – July 23, 2020) was an American meteorologist and weather presenter who served as chief meteorologist for WLS-TV in Chicago. ![]()
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