JUSTIN WILFON wilfon@kjrh.com Believe it or not, my journey to 2NEWS started way back in the third grade. That's when a weatherman from a local TV station visited my school. After he talked about the excitement of television news, I was immediately hooked. I started doing fake "newscasts" for my parents in the basement of our house! While I don't think any of those newscasts would win an Emmy, my parents were nice enough to put up with the nightly ritual.
Eight years later, at the age of 16, I started working in radio at a small station in Illinois. I answered phone calls for the station's talk shows and ran the board, or whatever else managers needed me to do. A short time later, I started working for a larger radio station in St. Louis, KTRS, where I wrote news and sports for the weekend newscasts. It was also during my teen years that I made my first appearance on television, and it's safe to say it had nothing to do with news.
Yes, I was a contestant on the Nickelodeon show, Wienerville. After winning a cupcake eating contest, I proudly won the "Golden Wiener Award." Not many have received such a prestigious honor.
During my college years at Southern Illinois University I reported and anchored for the school's nightly newscast on the local PBS station. Then, I started my real TV career on the west coast, where I anchored the weeknight newscasts at KEPR in Pasco, Washington. I worked as a reporter at WAVE in Louisville for more than two years, before finally arriving in Tulsa at KOKI, where I anchored the station's weekend evening newscasts. Now, I'm thrilled to be continuing my time in Tulsa as the co-anchor of 2NEWS Today & Midday.
My career highlights include coverage of the Oklahoma grass fires in the winter of 2006, a trip to Hollywood to cover American Idol, and a one-on-one interview with rock star and activist, Bono -- an experience I will certainly never forget.
In my spare time, I love to work out, play golf, and spend way too much time in front of the TV watching my favorite baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals.
