2023 in Review: 5 popular TV personalities left Rochester, here's where they are now

John Molseed, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
Updated ·3 min read

Dec. 26—ROCHESTER — Change was in the airwaves for Southeast Minnesota television stations in 2023.

Some longtime familiar faces on local television broadcast affiliates departed the area this year. Laura Lee, a news anchor for 13 years at KAAL-TV, ABC 6,

left to become a lead anchor of the NBC-affiliate station in Duluth,

Northern News Now.

Lee has dived into that job. Since arriving there, she has investigated Minnesota's sex offender program in Moose Lake, reported on the health care needs at the Bois Forte Reservation and the state's plan to bring health vending machines to tribal lands in Minnesota.

"I am still doing what I love — meeting people and sharing their stories and I am working with an awesome team of dedicated and passionate storytellers," she said.

It is just not work on the North Shore, as Lee has taken in the scenic drives, hikes and chased a waterfall here and there.

Lee came to Southeast Minnesota to take a job with KAAL's newsroom in Austin at the time. She had been working part-time at the ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities KSTP and decided to try a one-year contract in Austin, she told the Post Bulletin in April.

Lee said it was a difficult decision to leave Rochester and the "second family" she had there.

"It was time for a change for my children and me," Lee said. "My kids were getting older and the shift in our lives came at the right time."

Also departing after more than a decade with KAAL was Chief Meteorologist Chris Kuball.

Kuball left in May to take a position with Des Moines, Iowa ABC affiliate WOI.

Kuball, who grew up in southern Iowa, said the opportunity was right for him and his family. It's also been fun working on air for a network broadcast affiliate in the media market in which he grew up.

"I grew up watching these three channels in this area," Kuball said. "It's great, I get a lot of support, especially in my hometown."

Kuball had been at KAAL for more than 15 years — starting at the end of 2007 and leaving in May 2023. Kuball said he's glad to not only be closer to childhood friends and family but is also able to spend more time with his immediate family working a day shift.

"That a unicorn in this industry," he said. "It doesn't always happen in the TV industry."

Like Lee, Kuball said he didn't think he would spend more than a decade at KAAL.

"It initially started as, 'OK, I'll work here for a couple of years,'" he said.

Television news is an industry that has high turnover as people climb to bigger media markets. However, Kuball said he found he liked the area and turned down other job opportunities over the years.

Also departing KAAL in 2023 was James Wilcox. Wilcox was a KAAL news anchor from 2009 to 2017 and left to pursue opportunities in New York, Nebraska and elsewhere in Minnesota before returning to Rochester in May 2022. He departed the station abruptly in early September.

Neither Wilcox nor KAAL have publicly stated exactly what happened, citing legal contract limitations. Wilcox, who grew up in Brownsdale and graduated from Hayfield High School, landed a

longterm temporary position teaching English at Hayfield High School.

Although viewers might miss seeing Jim Peterson, a KAAL daytime meteorologist, he's still with the station as part of its sales and marketing team.

At KIMT News 3, Tyler Utzka departed the anchor desk in October to move to the Twin Cities after getting engaged in the spring.

"I'm grateful for the nearly seven years that I have been sitting here to bring you the news," Utzka wrote in a statement announcing his departure. "I got to live my dream."

At NBC affiliate KTTC, viewers may have noticed Caitlin Alexander absent from the anchor desk for the 5 p.m. newscasts beginning in October. However, Alexander is still with the station anchoring the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. weeknight newscasts.