KTHV’s news team knew her as family, then as an intern, and now as a full fledged colleague.
She’s Brooke Buckner, recently hired at THV11, Little Rock’s CBS affiliate. She’s also the daughter of Channel 11’s former chief meteorologist, Ed Buckner, a popular on-air figure at the station for more than 20 years.
Little Rock born and raised, Brooke Buckner got her degree from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and joins KTHV from KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where she has been reporting and anchoring newscasts since graduating in May 2020. A guitar and tennis hobbyist, Buckner calls TV newsrooms her “second home,” and she interned at both KTHV and Jonesboro’s KAIT as a college undergraduate.
She is to begin in Little Rock in early July, and Channel 11 officials welcomed an extension of the Buckner legacy.
Ed Buckner announced in early 2020 that complications from Tourette’s Syndrome were forcing him to take a leave of absence. Later, he found that he couldn’t continue as chief meteorologist and stepped down permanently.
As fate would have it, Brooke Buckner’s new boss is Channel 11 News Director Shayla Teater, herself the daughter of a Little Rock TV news favorite, Doug Krile, the former KARK anchor now retired as executive director of the Arkansas Broadcasters Association.
“We have watched Brooke grow up here in central Arkansas, and we’re thrilled to welcome her back home,” Teater said in a statement, predicting Buckner will be an “excellent addition to our unique reporting team.”
