Rafer Weigel joins Fox 32 as weekend news anchor

Rafer Weigel

Rafer Weigel, third-generation scion of one of Chicago broadcasting’s preeminent families, is returning home to become a reporter and weekend news anchor at Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32.

He’ll sign on September 1 and anchor at 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, according to an announcement Tuesday.

Confirming a report here August 9, Weigel is joining Fox 32 from KTVI, the Fox affiliate in St. Louis, where he has been 6 and 10 p.m. weekday news anchor since 2014. Before that he was a weekend sports anchor and reporter at ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7 here.

"I'm so grateful to be coming home to Chicago,” Weigel said in a statement. “The city and its journalistic history are in my blood.”

Weigel, 48, is the son of the late, legendary Chicago sports anchor Tim Weigel and grandson of Weigel Broadcasting founder and former radio announcer John Weigel. His mother, Kathy Worthington, is a former news anchor for Tribune Broadcasting news/talk WGN AM 720.

Earlier this month Fox 32 news anchor Jeff Herndon announced he was leaving, creating a vacancy alongside co-anchor Dawn Hasbrouck on the station’s 5 and 9 p.m. weekday newscasts. No word yet on a successor for Herndon.

A north suburban Evanston native and graduate of Evanston Township High School and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Weigel pursued an acting career before he shifted to broadcast journalism. After stops in Sacramento and San Diego, he worked as sports anchor for HLN’s “Morning Express with Robin Meade” from 2008 to 2011.