'Amazing journey' | Newsroom veteran Kerry McGee retiring after 34 years at WDRB (2024)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- WDRB News is wishing a happy retirement to one of the original newsroom employees.

Kerry McGee, the managing editor and resident newsroom curmudgeon, is retiring after more than 34 years with the station. In fact, Aug. 30, 2024, has been proclaimed Kerry McGee Day in Louisville by Mayor Craig Greenberg!

Through the years, Kerry has helped guide coverage of some of Louisville's biggest news events, from the city's first Thunder Over Louisville through the Old National Bank shooting.

After serving in the U.S. Air Force, the Kansas City native earned his journalism degree from the University of Missouri and found a home in Louisville where he and his wife, Bonnie, raised their two sons, Kevin and Michael. Kerry was working at WAVE television as a photographer, producer and night assignment editor when he was hired at WDRB.

He has spent decades at the assignment desk, which acts as the nerve center of the newsroom. Kerry has been a masterful conductor, taking calls, reading emails, listening to a half dozen police scanners all while keeping track of stories, reporters, photographers and resources that make the place tick. It can be an overwhelming position with a cacophony of noise and voices. It's a very stressful job, and Kerry thrived distilling the chaos into information.

From the beginning

Kerry was one of the original employees of WDRB when he was hired in January 1990 along with producer and future news director Kathy Lehmann Francis, chief photographer Kenny Bradley and news director Hal Stopfel. Their first mission was to build a staff, create a newsroom and start a nightly newscast.

Stopfel led the newsroom from 1989-2000. He told us this week that hiring Kerry gave a fresh perspective to the news.

"I don't know what was going through my mind more than 30 years ago, except the concept was 'Let the news of the day drive the newscast,'" Stopfel said. "Who better to lead the news gathering side of the staff than an ex-photographer with a journalism degree who knew the city and its people? That's why I hired Kerry McGee."

Kerry said this week there will always be stories that resonate for him from his four decades covering Louisville news, including the disappearance of a young Ann Gotlib in 1983 and the Crystal Rogers case. He said both are similar cases for him "just total evaporation with no clues or hints or evidence as to what happened."

Other headlines stamped in his memories include the Standard Gravure/Joseph Wesbecker mass shooting in 1989, the Carroll County bus crash in 1988 on Interstate 71 killing 27 people from a Radcliff Church returning from Kings Island and, more recently, the Breonna Taylor shooting and subsequent demonstrations/protests that lasted for days and from which repercussions still flow.

Leadership and friendship

Many of us at WDRB News will always look to Kerry as a leader, a sounding board, a person with endless contacts and a wicked sense of humor. It wasn't a big surprise when Kerry announced his retirement this month or how he did it. He just emailed the newsroom as he left on a Monday for all of us to absorb the news.

"Not gonna lie," he wrote. "It's going to be difficult to walk away from a place where I've spent almost half my life and more than half of my work life. I can't begin to thank all of the consummate professionals— past and present—who worked to make WDRB a leader in local news. It was truly an amazing journey that is testament to the effort, knowledge, and high journalistic standards of the station, its leadership, and all who contribute to its success."

Kerry has worked with all four news directors that have occupied that office, including Barry Fulmer, who was at the helm for 17 years — longer than any other television news director in Louisville history.

Fulmer said Kerry was hired before the launch of WDRB News at 10 in 1990.

"He served many roles but was a great watchdog for good journalism," Fulmer said. "He was very connected to the community and a journalist people in our area knew and trusted. While Kerry's work was done behind the camera, he was part of the backbone that made WDRB so successful. WDRB News will benefit from Kerry's talents for years to come."

Jennifer Keeney has been working with Kerry for more than 23 years — first as a producer, then assistant news director and now news director. She called Kerry the "foundation of WDRB News."

"He provides invaluable insight from all his experience covering news in our community for so long. He has seen it all," Keeney said. "He's also the heart of our newsroom. He is wickedly smart and quick to crack jokes as he runs our editorial meetings — a much-needed trait when you work in a stressful profession. He's a great journalist, a great friend and a great man. It's hard for me to express how much he means to us, and how much we'll miss him. He's on the Mount Rushmore of local journalism."

Longtime Louisville reporter Chris Turner has been by Kerry's side the past decade working the assignment desk. He has an appreciation for what Kerry has been juggling the past three decades.

"He makes hundreds of decisions a day from the assignment desk," Turner said. "Those are decisions that are the foundations of the stories we report every day. And, they come from the midst of a constant din of police radios, prickly people on the phone and a barrage of 600 emails daily."

Some of the young journalists that have made their way to Louisville and WDRB have Kerry to thank for helping guide them. WDRB Mornings' Candyce Clifft was once one of those young journalists who came to the station for her first job and stayed.

"I can't imagine a newsroom without Kerry McGee," she said. "His organization, contacts and journalistic integrity will be sorely missed. Kerry has been a mentor and friend to me for 27 years. I will miss all he contributes to the newsroom, but, more than that, I will miss his kindness and his smile."

Longevity, legacy and love from his boys

So we asked Kerry what the secret has been to staying at WDRB for more than 34 years.

"I stayed because I didn't need to go anywhere else," he said. "I had roots in town with a wife who had her own career and kids in school with their own lives, and, although my position was the same, the job changed every day — because the news changed every day."

Kerry said he has always felt he was part of something special.

"Since I was here from the beginning, I felt I had a type of ownership of this department, along with Hal and Kathy and all the other OGs," he said. "And I must have done a pretty good job, because no one asked me to go. It didn't hurt either that I really enjoyed and respected all the other staff that have come through this department. That was really important. If I hadn't liked most of the people here, then staying would have been miserable."

Kerry now has more time to spend with his sons, Michael and Kevin, their wives and his four grandchildren. Both of the boys remember growing up with a dad that was dedicated to a profession Michael called, "borne of a deep-seated belief of journalism's civic importance. Facts matter, accuracy matters, and a journalist's duty matters."

It's also pretty cool to have a dad who works in TV. Michael told us how he remembers spending many days as a child hanging at Fox 41.

"Dad frequently notes that it was usually a result of me either in trouble, or sick. I didn't mind either way, because the days were fun. I mean, where else did a breakroom have four TVs on all the time?! Incredible to 7, 8, 9, 10 year-old me. Where else could I have a spoken line on a televised commercial for the Fox 41 Kids Club? Where else could I get an honest-to-god typed script in triplicate for my 3rd grade newscasting assignment?," he said.

So what do two loving sons wish for their father in retirement?

Kevin is ready for his dad to take to the skies.

"Congratulations on your retirement! Thirty-four years in one place is an amazing accomplishment, and it was great watching Dad first-hand help build WDRB from a little start-up news station to the #1 station in Louisville," he said. "With retirement here, we're excited to see Dad finish up his pilot's license so he can fly around his grandkids, and I know Ryan, Patrick, Eliza, and Harrison are thrilled to spend more time with their Grandpa."

"I hope that as Dad walks away from the station and begins his retirement, he walks away with the knowledge that his duty mattered," Michael said.

And there was a more personal message from Michael, too.

"So Dad, we are very proud of you and are looking forward to you sharing your retirement with us. Grandchildren always need squeezes, the Royals will continue to play at least 162 times a year, national parks need to be seen, Mahomes needs to 3-peat, and Route 66 ain't gonna drive itself. Your new job is to 'find fun.'"

The WDRB staff gathered Thursday to share a few gifts including an engraved bottle of Woodford Reserve, a custom saddlecloth from Churchill Downs with his name and a personalized Louisville Slugger bat.

One gift left Kerry speechless for a moment, when he was given a plaque that renames the spot where he has run literally thousands of meetings. It is now and will forever be the Kerry McGee News Conference Room.

So all of us at WDRB wish Kerry the very best as he takes a well deserved retirement. As he told the newsroom a few weeks ago, "A batter in baseball has three goals: Get on, get around, and get home. I got on. I've been around. Now, I'm gettin' home."

We also wanted to share the very sweet note Michael McGee shared with us for his father's retirement.

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