Marcia Yockey (6 November 1922 - 28 September 2000) was an American

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

who was best known for her 35-year on-air career in

Evansville, Indiana Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

. She made her television debut on

WFIE WFIE (channel 14) is a television station in Evansville, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located on Mount Auburn Road in Evansville, and its transmitter is located in the Wolf ...

Channel 14 in 1953, after 10 years of working for the U.S. Weather Bureau (1943–1953).

Life

She was initially trained in Chicago at the US Weather Bureau school during World War II. Her recruitment into the U.S. Weather Bureau was a consequence of the depletion of male professionals due to war recruitment. After a 10 year U.S. Weather Bureau career at Evansville Indiana and Grand Island, Nebraska, Yockey's love of the Evansville area and the need to be close to family led to her beginning her television weather forecasting career on November 15, 1953, at the new WFIE-TV station. At this time, TV stations did not require a formal meteorology degree. Over the course of her career, she moved from

Channel 14 to

WTVW WTVW (channel 7) is a television station in Evansville, Indiana, United States, serving as a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station of The CW. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexsta ...

Channel 7 in 1956, then returned to Channel 14 in 1971, before finally retiring in 1988. Notorious for her sometimes eccentric behavior, Yockey quit one station because she didn't like a new theme song they picked. Another time she gave notice when her bosses cancelled her annual July 4 televised swim after the forecast. Yockey was also a skilled pilot. She owned a single-engine plane (a two seat Taylorcraft she named the "Butterfly") and noted that flying was among her favorite pastimes. Channel 14 newscaster Mike Blake recalled the veteran weather-woman's habit of going beyond her allotted time. Blake, becoming impatient from the sidelines asked for Yockey to hurry it up. Yockey, in full view and hearing of the television audience, responded with "Keep it up, Sports, and you'll never get on." Yockey was apparently unconcerned with ratings, and her longevity in working in Evansville was unique among television personalities, despite having been invited to join teams in New York and Los Angeles, among others. One driver behind her remaining in the Evansville local area is that her elderly parents still lived in the area. Her routine involved two hours of preparation for her typically five-minute weather presentation. A resident of Newburgh, she reached star status for her forecasting skill, irreverent attitude, and colorful personality, bordering on

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. She died in 2000 at the age of 77 after suffering for several years from

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, though ultimately succumbing to a heart attack. It appears that she never married.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yockey, Marcia 1923 births 2000 deaths People from Evansville, Indiana Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in the United States Neurological disease deaths in Indiana People from Newburgh, Indiana American television weather presenters