Aurora’s Own Tom Skilling Calling It A Career

Congrats to our very own Tom Skilling, who announced today that he will be retiring next year after 45 years with WGN-TV.

Tom Skilling, a fixture of Chicago television and beloved by generations, announced Thursday he will retire next year after 45 years at WGN https://t.co/TQ9oEyqXuV

— WGN TV News (@WGNNews) October 12, 2023

You may or may not be aware that Tom got his start right here on these very airwaves. Before we were WERV-FM 95.9 The River, we were WKKD-FM and WKKD-AM. When Tom was in high school at West Aurora, he started his broadcasting career right here with us at WKKD!

When he was just 18 he would move on to Aurora’s TV Station at the time, WLXT. Then he attended the University of Wisconsin, where he woudl then go on to work at a few stations on the northern side of the Cheddar curtain. In 1978 he would move back to Chicagoland and take a job with WGN-TV…the rest is weather forecasting history.

Personally, I’d like to thank Tom for his work on the Plainfield tornado of 1991. He did a documentary called It Sounded Like a Freight Train. I remember watching that when I was 8 years old. I had quite the fear of thunderstorms then, having been through a few tornadoes in Lemont. I remember watching, and more importantly, learning about about those types of storms, and the more I learned, then less afraid I became. To this today, I have a fascination with learning as much as I can about meteorology.

Thanks Tom, and have a beautiful retirement.