Ryan Nobles of NBC remembering his WKTV days with his wife Karey. (Screenshot WKTV / December 2, 2024)
WKTV held what turned out to be a "star studded" on-air news special for their 75th anniversary celebration on Monday night. Local celebrities and political figures presented commemorations and former WKTV on-air personalities sent in video greetings throughout the program as current personalities told the story of the now 75-year-old television station.
The Today Show's Hoda Kotbe congratulated the staff of WKTV on their years of service to the community, even though she never worked in Utica. Plenty of other reporters and anchors who've gone on to bigger markets sent in videos, as well. NBC's Ryan Nobles sent in his greeting from the set of Meet the Press where he often sits at the anchor desk on MSNBC. Nobles and his wife Karey worked as co-anchors in the launch of the 5 o'clock News Hour in the early 2000s. In fact, the couple started the "early" evening news just days before the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Nobles is a weekly guest on WIBX's Keeler in the Morning Show.
Other broadcast greats were featured including WKTV's biggest alumni member, Dick Clay, who went on to become the iconic Dick Clark, who actually left his job in Utica to host ABC's American Bandstand. Many other Utica legends were featured such as Dick Lawler, Bill Wordon, Lysle Bosely, Jerry Fiore, and Donna Hanover, who is the former wife of former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The couple divorced in 2002. Hanover went on from Utica in 1973 to work at several television stations, and then New York City's WPIX and WOR. She later moved into an acting career where she performed on Broadway, as well as several movies including The People vs. Larry Flynt, Ally McBeal, Law and Order, among many others.
The news special, hosted by current anchors Kristen Copeland and Jason Powles, featured current on-air staff such as Meteorologist Bill Kardas and Reporter Jolene Ferris, as well as General Manager Steve McMurray who handled the presentations from local officials like Senator Joe Griffo and Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente. The segments on the station's history showed how those involved with the tv station during the early years were pioneers without a template, who found their own methods and practices, some of which later became standards in the television industry.