SAN FRANCISCO — “I am so happy to be returning to the news desk as co-anchor with Allen Martin at CBS 5 Eyewitness News,” exclaimed Wendy Tokuda when I spoke to her last week.
Well-known in the Bay Area, Tokuda has been on the news scene for many years. In 1987, she began “Tokuda Reports,” ongoing special reports for which she was assigned her own news production unit. She worked for 14 years as an anchor/reporter at KPIX-TV in San Francisco where she won almost every honor that could be awarded to a local broadcast journalist. Moving to Los Angeles, she co-anchored for five years at NBC 4, before returning to KRON 4 in 1997 to become one of the most popular news anchors in local news.
When you hear Tokuda talk about the program she started, “Students Rising Above,” you can feel her energy and dedication. It began as a KRON 4 series of news stories, specials, and public service announcements created by Tokuda and KRON 4 Community Relations Manager Zavier Valencia. Each story featured low-income, at-risk Bay Area high school seniors overcoming tremendous obstacles.
“More than half are growing up without parents, others are homeless, and some are raising their own siblings,” she said. “One young man we helped many years ago was raising his younger sister all by himself while trying to survive on his own. I just ran into him, now a college graduate, and yes, he was still looking after that younger sister. I convinced him to share his sister with me, and now she gets to come and stay with me sometime each week. That’s how close I get to these valiant students.”
The students featured in Tokuda’s program were all growing up below the federal poverty line, and all wanted to go to college. Following each report, viewers were encouraged to donate to the SRA Scholarship Fund (studensrisingabove.org). Tokuda proudly proclaimed that since 1998 it has raised more than $3.8 million dollars to help these kids go to college.
“It’s amazing how this program grew and so many people came out to help,” Tokuda said with pride. “Now it’s a non-profit organization. Almost all of these kids are the first in their families to go to college, and over the years, we’ve learned how they struggle academically and socially on campus. SRA provides mentors, financial counseling, a computer, sheets and towels for the dorm and other support normally provided by parents. Our goal is not just to give them a check but to help them get through college, and I’m so pleased at our success rate.”
Tokuda has won seven Northern California Emmy awards, a Golden Mike Award, three first place awards from Tri-State United Press International, and three first place Radio-Television News Directors Association Awards. She’s written two children’s books, including the 1987 bestseller “Humphrey The Lost Whale.” She was also founding president of the Bay Area chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association.
Tokuda is starting her new job with the same winning smile and quiet determination that has always gotten her where she wants to be. In her personal life, she is engaged to commercial real estate broker John Norheim. It had been 10 years since we last talked, and when I asked after her little girls, she laughed. “Those little girls are now a student ready to graduate from Scripps, and her older sister already finished college and is working in New York. I’m an empty nester and will now have the best of both worlds,” she said.
“For one thing, I get to work part-time, and best of all, I get to do the two things I enjoy most. I love being in the midst of reporting the news, and working for CBS is of course an honor. In addition I get to continue my work with my ‘Students Rising Above’ programs I did at KRON, which has been a life changing experience for me,” she said.
“I’m very happy today to be where I am and with what I will be doing at CBS. This is a new, challenging industry where we have to work harder to win viewers. It’s a complex world in the television newsroom today, and this is a wide-open field for Asian Americans who want to join this field. Television journalism is a public responsibility to be taken seriously to tell the news correctly,” she concluded.
Tokuda will be once again greeting us from the TV screen come Apr. 9 on CBS 5 Eyewitness News at 5 p.m. In addition, watch for her “Students Rising Above” specials, which is truly where her heart and soul is. No doubt she will continue to cop many new awards in the field. Wendy the winner is back!