KRON4 anchor Ken Wayne announces retirement

Sonoma resident and KRON4 News anchor Ken Wayne is stepping away from the evening desk after a 33-year career of reporting the news in the Bay Area, the station announced last month.

Wayne has anchored KRON4 News for the past six years after 26 years as an anchor and reporter at the Bay Area’s Fox affiliate KTVU.

During his broadcast career, Wayne has been awarded multiple regional Emmys, Edward R. Murrow awards, and a Peabody.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find another local journalist more dedicated to serving the Bay Area,“ KRON4 News Director Josh Palefsky said in a story posted April 30 on kron4.com.

He started his journalism career in 1979 as a Navy broadcast journalist for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Network. He anchored his first newscast at 19. His Navy service ended as the news chief, stationed at Subic Naval Station in the Philippines.

According to KRON4, Wayne advocated for veteran-related stories, hosted Memorial Day events at the Presidio, and produced KRON’s annual Veterans’ Voices special.

The Marin County native and longtime local resident covered a wide variety of historically significant stories in his Bay Area tenure, from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake to Nancy Pelosi becoming the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives.

“In all these stories, I tried to convey a sense of meaning and relevance to viewers. Why it matters. Why it matters to them,” Wayne said in KRON4’s April 30 story.

In addition to anchoring the news, Wayne is well known for his animal rescue missions with Pilots N Paws, a South Carolina-based nonprofit that rescues, shelters and adopts pets, and often relies on volunteer pilots to assist with their transportation. Wayne, who received his pilot’s license in 1999, occasionally delivers rehabilitated animals back to the wild in his 1972 Cessna 182 aircraft.

Last year, Wayne helped deliver a bald eagle back to its habitat at Lake Almanor from Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue, where it was recovering from a damaged shoulder and punctured wing.

The name for his animal rescue services, Flying Tails, also became the name of his KRON4 segment where he chronicled his and others’ aerial journeys.

A September 2022 Flying Tails segment that Wayne produced about a flight attendant who reunited a Ukraine cat with its refugee family in the Bay Area led to the short documentary, “Save the Cat,” which won the McNeely Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Sonoma International Film Festival in March.

In announcing his retirement, Wayne said he looks forward to dedicating more time to his animal rescue efforts.

For more, go to kron4.com.