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Emmy award-winning journalist and author Chad Tucker grew up in the Stokes County community of King, where at the age of 12 he landed his first broadcasting job as a radio announcer for WKTE-AM. He got his first taste of journalism while in high school, writing for his hometown paper, the former King Times-News.
Chad began his television career while a student at East Carolina University, as a news producer for CBS affiliate WNCT-TV in Greenville, N.C. Chad earned a bachelor's degree in communications and a master's degree in instructional technology from East Carolina. After graduation, he turned to the other side of the camera, reporting and anchoring the weekend news, then the morning show for WNCT. In June 2002, he joined the FOX8 family and today reports for the 10 o'clock news.
In January of 2010, Chad received an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Science for his story on the historic Nancy Reynolds School in Stokes County. The story also gained him first place in education reporting by the Radio and Television News Directors Association of the Carolinas (RTNDAC). RTNDAC also awarded Chad two silver awards for his reporting in education in 2008 and spot news reporting in 2006. He also received an Emmy nomination for spot news reporting in 2006 and general assignment reporting on increased adoptions at the Stokes County Animal Shelter in 2012.
Readers of Smitty's Notes voted Chad one of the "best male TV news personalities" in the 2007 "The Best of Winston-Salem" awards. Chad and his colleagues at WNCT-TV won numerous awards, including the Edward R. Murrow Award for continuous coverage of Hurricane Floyd and the floods that followed in September 1999.
An advocate for shelter pets, Chad volunteers with animal rescue groups to help bring awareness of our local shelters and promote adoptions of homeless animals. In 2009 he created a Facebook page, named after his dog Otis, to help increase awareness of adoptable pets in local shelters through social media. He has reported extensively on animal welfare and cruelty cases and was the first to report on Susie, an 8-week-old mixed breed dog that was found beaten and set on fire in a Guilford County park in 2009. Susie's story helped strengthen North Carolina's animal abuse law which now bears her name.
Chad has received recognition for volunteering with animal rescue groups, the arts, hospice and education and delivered the fall commencement address for the East Carolina University School of Communication in 2005. He shares his experience and journalism knowledge in the classroom as an adjunct professor of communications at Winston-Salem State University and Forsyth Technical Community College, both in Winston-Salem.
If his subdued southern drawl doesn't give away his Piedmont roots, Chad's personality does. He has an affinity for small town folks, an appetite for North Carolina history, family genealogy and a love of Andy Griffith Show reruns. Chad has authored several regional history books on Stokes County and his hometown of King. His family roots run deep in Stokes County and American history. Through his paternal grandmother, he is a fifth-great nephew of Charles King, whose home, King's Cabin, became the namesake of the City of King. Through his maternal grandfather, his ancestry includes Thomas Stone, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Chad and his wife Meredith enjoy biking, traveling, spending time with family and their rescued dogs Otis and Lucy.
