New in the Newsroom at WEEK/WHOI-TV
Four new staffers are reporting news and weather at the two stations that broadcast out of the same facility in East Peoria.
Cassandra Hager is producing and anchoring the weekend newscasts. She’s a Wisconsin native who previously worked at stations in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Grand Island, Nebraska.
Maddie Heidenreich is doing weekend weather. She studied at Missouri and worked on-air at KOMU-TV in Columbia. The Freeburg, Illinois native is also pursuing a meteorology degree from Mississippi State University.
Reporter Samantha Chatman comes to Peoria from Chicago, by way of the University of Illinois. She worked at UI-7 News there and interned at WCIA-TV, WFLD-TV and WLS-TV.
Chris Lovingood grew up in Peoria and just graduated from Western Illinois University. While there, he worked for WIUM/WIUW radio and also for the News3 newscast. He also won several S-INBA Awards at the recent INBA Spring Convention.
Others new to the NBC/ABC affiliates' newsroom are: WHOI Daybreak Producer Kristen Bolden, a recent grad from the University of Alabama and Web Producer Valerie Wojs, a Columbia College grad.
All have been hired by News Director Greg Schieferstein, who is fairly new himself – he arrived in the Peoria market last October, and has held News Management roles at stations in Ohio, Georgia, Montana, Idaho, Alabama and Florida. He’s been in Illinois once before, as Managing Editor at WIFR in Rockford. He’s a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. He has also taught broadcast journalism at the University of Florida.