A longtime meteorologist and anchor at Little Rock's CBS affiliate KTHV-TV will be leaving later this year to embark on a new career at a Little Rock advertising agency, the station said Tuesday.
Tom Brannon, who has been with the station since April 1996, will join Ron Sherman Productions, where he will tentatively work as operations director, said KTHV marketing director Jessica Johnson Amis.
Brannon said he will miss the viewers and co-workers he has come to know over his more than two decades at the affiliate and particularly on the station's morning broadcast.
According to a station biography, Brannon started as a weekend meteorologist. Two years later, he became a co-anchor on THV11 This Morning, which was then branded under the Today's THV moniker, and has remained in that position since.
"It has been a phenomenal almost 22 years," the longtime TV figure said. "I have had the honor and privilege of working with some really special and talented people."
Throughout his career at KTHV, Brannon has covered numerous tornadoes and storms, including an EF4 tornado in March 1997 that touched down in Arkadelphia and left damage along a path that continued into the Little Rock area.
Brannon has also led the THV11 Summer Cereal Drive for the past 17 years, "doing much of the behind-the-scene legwork," according to the station.
One of Brannon's colleagues, Ed Buckner, noted that he is "always ready, always willing and always able to help his fellow Arkansans."
KTHV News Director Dave Parker echoed that sentiment.
"His dedication to the viewers and people in central Arkansas is unbelievable," Parker said. "The THV11 team will miss Tom, but we are happy for him and his family."
Metro on 09/13/2017