Museum of Broadcasting Hall of Fame

Bud Kraehling
2001 Charter Inductee

One of Minnesota's best known and best loved television personalities, weatherman Bud Kraehling, began his 50-year broadcasting career as a favor for a friend. When WCAZ Carthage, Illinois, was short of staff, a high school friend working as an announcer there asked him to stop in and help out, getting records ready to play and reading the market reports on the air. After six months, he moved on to WGIL Galesburg, Illinois, before serving in the US Army in the Philippines during World War II. In 1946 he came to the Twin Cities as an announcer at WTCN Minneapolis/Saint Paul, and entered television on WTCN TV (now WCCO TV) in 1949. In 1950, he began a five-minute 10:00 PM television weather report for Taystee Bread. Over the next decades, he saw many changes in television weather coverage. He wrote forecasts on the "Weather Window" for crowds gathered outside the studio, and later worked from the "Shell Weather Tower," an elaborate set with weather maps, dials and gauges, as well as from more conventional settings. Through it all he has been a reassuring presence that viewers loved and trusted. He retired in 1996.