Sun adds former CKX anchor as health reporter

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This article was published 09/12/2022 (1001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former CKX news anchor has returned to her hometown to become The Brandon Sun’s new health reporter.

Earlier this week, veteran broadcast reporter Michele McDougall started at the Wheat City’s 140-year-old newspaper after a seven-year break from the industry.

Growing up in Brandon, McDougall first got the opportunity to present news for noon show “Manitoba Midday” at the now-defunct CKX television station in the late 1980s.

After getting a taste of the business, she moved to Alberta to build a resumé working for cable TV.

Eventually, she became an anchor and reporter for a CTV affiliate station in Lethbridge as well as serving as both weather specialist and news anchor for Citytv’s “Breakfast Television” morning show in Edmonton and Calgary.

In her years spent in Alberta, she learned to love the hamlet of Lac La Biche, approximately 220 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Eventually, she moved to that community to become the region’s tourism and marketing director and following that, a marketing specialist at Portage College.

Though she lived away for more than two decades, McDougall made regular trips to Westman and the surrounding areas to visit family in Brandon, Killarney and Moosomin, Sask.

“In the back of my mind, I always wanted to return to Brandon,” she said. “I put it out into the universe, kept an eye out for jobs and looked for opportunities on search engines.”

In the early part of 2022, that opportunity revealed itself. She followed Brandon Tourism’s “Brandon Brings You Back” slogan and came home to spend several months as the marketing and communications co-ordinator for the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba.

Now she has returned to journalism to write about health for the Sun. Along the way, she’s also looking for chances to indulge in one of her favourite activities: curling.

While she was away, McDougall said she kept tabs on the community by maintaining an online subscription to the newspaper. Now that she’s back, she said she’s looking forward to learning more about the city through interacting with its residents in person.

One of the biggest changes that has taken place in her absence has been the city’s growth.

“In areas where we used to go throw rocks and sticks and hike with the dog for miles is now neighbourhood after neighbourhood,” she said.

In her work, she said, she’s hoping to tell stories that will benefit those going on their journeys through the health-care system.

If you have a health-related story you’d like to speak with McDougall about, she can be reached by email at mmcdougall@brandonsun.com or on Twitter @enviromichele.

» The Brandon Sun