KATV Meteorologist Melinda Mayo Says Goodbye After 39 Years

KATV meteorologist Melinda Mayo (Photo provided by Melinda Mayo)

Melinda Mayo, a familiar face on Little Rock TV news for decades, is retiring from KATV, Channel 7, on April 1.

The Pine Bluff native announced her decision early this week on social media. The co-host of “Daybreak” and “Good Morning Arkansas” has been part of the city’s TV news scene since 1987, working as a photographer, news editor, producer, reporter and weekend and morning anchor.

Her career’s turning point came as Mayo was vacationing in Florida in October 1995, when Hurricane Opal hit the Fort Walton-Destin area. Mayo covered the evacuation, storm destruction and aftermath, and decided to return to college to study meteorology. She joined KATV in February 1996, almost precisely 30 years ago.

“After 39 years of first chasing news stories and later chasing cold fronts, I have decided to retire from KATV in April,” Mayo wrote on Facebook. “I have had the career I dreamed of as a little girl and to get to do it all in my home state makes it even more special.”

The longtime Sunday School devotee said she’d thought about and prayed on retirement for several years, and believes the time is right. She quoted the Book of Philippians: “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Mayo said God’s work with her isn’t done, “and the good work is not complete. However, it is time to get more rest and to take better care of myself.” Her job required her to go on the air with “Daybreak” at 4:30 a.m., and to follow with “Good Morning Arkansas” at 7:30.

She described the KATV team as “the kindest and most talented people in the business,” and said she will relish working with her colleagues for her remaining weeks on TV.

Mayo, who earned the Trinity Foundation Scholarship from Pine Bluff High School, studied at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia and earned a bachelor’s in broadcast journalism at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. She received her broadcast meteorology certification at Mississippi State University in Starkville.

A member of the American Meteorological Society and National Weather Association, Mayo’s weathercasts claimed the AMS Seal of Approval in 2004.

Other professional honors include an Associated Press award for spot news reporting in 1990 for covering the springtime floods that ravaged Hot Springs. The same coverage won her first-place recognition in a six-state regional competition conducted by the Radio/Television News Directors Association.