“Good Day Wisconsin” co-anchor Rachel Manek grew up in Appleton and has been at WLUK since 1994. Her alarm goes off at 2:45 a.m. each weekday. She’s in studio by 3:45 a.m. and on the air at 4:30 a.m.
She feels the love for ‘Good Day Wisconsin’ out in the community
Even before she went to Valparaiso University in Indiana, Manek knew she wanted to be in broadcast journalism.
“I liked the idea of TV but I couldn’t act, and I liked to write,” she said.
What she didn’t see coming was where her career path would take her. After coming to Green Bay from short stints in Quincy, Illinois, and Wausau out of college, she envisioned where her next stops would be.
“Milwaukee, Chicago, ‘Good Morning America,’” she said. “Until I had kids and I was real happy to stay.”
She and her husband, John, a former WLUK television photographer she met while working in Wausau, are the parents of two daughters. She can rattle off a whole list of things she loves about living and raising a family in Green Bay and Wisconsin.
“The niceness. It’s comfortable. It’s growing. There were hardly any restaurants when I came to town and now look at it,” she said. “I’m a Packers fan. That helps. I love Door County. I love the lakeshore. It’s like home.”
There’s a family feel among the “Good Day Wisconsin” team, too, and Manek thinks that goes a long way in the show’s enduring popularity.
“People can tell we really like each other, and we’re not faking it,” she said. “Pete tells bad jokes, and we love that about him. (Co-anchor) Emily (Deem) cooks breakfast for me every morning. We use Amy’s kitchen. She makes me breakfast, and I do the dishes.
“We are together more than we are with our spouses a lot of times,” Manek said. “It would be hard if we didn’t like each other, I think.”
She’s grateful for the warm reception “Good Day Wisconsin” gets out in the community and on social media, a platform not always known for being a kind place.
“You can’t go anywhere without people asking about Pete. Kids love Pete, and now kids are grown up and their kids love Pete. I feel the love for ‘Good Day Wisconsin’ in the community,” she said.
“People are nice to us. There’s a lot of not-so-nice stuff said on the internet about a lot of people,” she said. “I would say we’re pretty lucky around here.”
It’s such a good gig that Manek said she feels bad for anybody who has been waiting for her chair to open up in hopes of getting the job.
“I do plan to retire at some point. Not another 30 years. In my mind, more than four,” she said. “In four years, I’ll be 60. Will the community still want to turn their TVs on and see my face in four years? I hope so.”
Manek has been at WLUK six months longer than Petoniak, who will hit his 30-year milestone next year. Does she ever remind him that she has a few months on him?
“All the time,” she says, laughing.
Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or [email protected]. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: ‘Good Day Wisconsin’ anchor Rachel Manek celebrates 30 years at WLUK
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Publish date : 2024-09-23 23:10:00
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