![]() ![]() You can’t let somebody’s rejection of you define your path. I’d get a rejection letter, but you just keep pressing on. I feel so blessed…but back in Richmond, I used to have probably a two-inch thick file of rejection letters from news directors around the country that I would send tapes out to. 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. I have no hard feeling about any of this.”Īcknowledging his new colleague’s telegenic qualities, Taft added: “You could say now I’ll be the second best looking weather person here.I had this idea back in 7th grade that I wanted to go into broadcasting. “I thought Cheryl was very good at Channel 5 and I think she’ll do an excellent job here. “It’s inevitable that decisions like this are made, and it’s one that I would probably make if I were the manager,” Taft said. But without my asking, he said he would welcome Scott to the station wholeheartedly. ![]() ![]() In fact, he still doesn’t know how she’ll be deployed at the outset. In an interview, Taft, 71, said his bosses have never discussed retirement with him and kept him in the dark about Scott until word of her hiring broke here. Taft, who is a 30-year veteran of the station, recently signed a two-year contract extension that runs through July 2016. Scott, 29, joins an experienced weather team at ABC 7 headed by chief meteorologist Jerry Taft and including Tracy Butler, Mike Caplan and Phil Schwarz. “She worked on our team for three years, and we wanted her to know we appreciated her efforts.”Īlthough NBC could have kept Scott off the air until March (at least according to one interpretation), Doebler agreed to a December 15 release, sources said. “We were just wishing her well and thanking her for her work at NBC 5,” David Doebler, president and general manager of NBC 5, said of their visit. The New Jersey native and Brown University graduate chose not to accept the station’s renewal offer in order to consider other options. John Idler, president and general manager of ABC 7, declined to comment.Įarlier this week Scott paid a courtesy call to her former bosses at the NBC-owned station, where she attracted an enthusiastic following during three years as weekend meteorologist. The agreement was negotiated by her agent, Chicago-based attorney Andrew Stroth. The ABC-owned station is expected to announce Monday that Scott has been signed as a full-time meteorologist and will begin working before the end of the year, sources said.Īs first reported here October 20, Scott is joining ABC 7 under a three-year contract that eventually will elevate her to the top-rated 10 p.m. Three months after she delivered her farewell forecast on WMAQ-Channel 5, Cheryl Scott is back on the radar and about to make her debut on WLS-Channel 7. ![]()
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