Judie Garcia (born July 21, 1960) is a former

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

and reporter for WGN-TV.

Early life and education

Born in Chicago to Mexican-American parents, Garcia earned a bachelor's degree in English from the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1990.

Professional career

She worked for many years as a paralegal before beginning her broadcasting career at the age of 34. Her first television job was at KMOL-TV (now

WOAI-TV WOAI-TV (channel 4) is a television station in San Antonio, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fox affiliate KABB (channel 29); Sinclair also provides certain services to Ke ...

) in

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

, followed by work as a reporter at

KWES-TV KWES-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving the Permian Basin area as an affiliate of NBC. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. and maintains studios on West County Road 127 near the Midland Inte ...

Odessa, Texas Odessa is a city in and the county seat of Ector County, Texas, United States. It is located primarily in Ector County, although a small section of the city extends into Midland County. Odessa's population was 114,428 at the 2020 census, ma ...

/ Midland, Texas. Garcia then accepted an on-air job as the 11 p.m. anchor at KNTV-TV in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

. According to a Chicago Sun-Times article dated September 25, 1996, she joined

WLS-TV WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North Stat ...

in Chicago as a news reporter and fill-in news anchor. Several months later, Garcia was promoted to co-anchor of WLS' two Sunday morning newscasts, first alongside WLS' John Garcia (no relation) and later next to

Beth Spicuzza Beth may refer to: Letter and number *Bet (letter), or beth, the second letter of the Semitic abjads (writing systems) *Hebrew word for "house", often used in the name of synagogues and schools (e.g. Beth Israel) Name *Beth (given name) lists p ...

and then Dick Johnson. Garcia left WLS-TV in June 2001 to pursue opportunities in broadcasting and elsewhere, according to a June 8, 2001 article in the Chicago Sun-Times. In April 2002, she joined

WBBM-TV WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Str ...

in Chicago as a per diem free-lance news reporter, according to an April 2, 2002 article in the Chicago Sun-Times. In 2003, Garcia joined WGN-TV as a reporter.http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/184/632

References

Living people American television reporters and correspondents 1960 births Journalists from Illinois People from Chicago American people of Mexican descent University of Texas alumni {{US-journalist-stub