Remembering Nancy Parker: Devoted journalist, wife and mother
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Nancy Parker was a storyteller, friend, wife and mother.
She was a five-time Emmy Award winning journalist and eight-time Emmy nominee who has spent almost thirty years covering news in South Louisiana.
She has anchored every prime-time newscast at WVUE FOX8 during her twenty-two-year tenure in New Orleans.
The mother of three moved on to anchor FOX 8 Morning Edition.
Nancy is a native of Opelika, Alabama where she graduated with honors from Opelika High School.
In 1988, Nancy graduated with honors from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism. In 2015, she was presented the college-wide Bert Bank Distinguished Service Award at the University of Alabama. She has also been named to the Board of Visitors for the School of Communications and Information Sciences.
Nancy was a senior in high school when her real love affair with news began. She landed a job anchoring evening drive news at WJHO, a local AM radio station. The 17-year-old juggled school events while covering news in the evening with a tape recorder and a dream.
After earning her college degree, Nancy spent several months working in Washington, D. C. in the late U.S. Congressman Bill Nichols' congressional press office. While in Washington, she landed her first TV news job in 1989 as Alabama Bureau reporter for WTVM Channel 9 in Columbus, Georgia.
She did her own camera work for her news reports back then, but in her words, she was still in heaven.
Her next stop was at WSFA News 12 in Montgomery, Alabama.
It wasn't long before Nancy was anchoring morning news cut-ins at the station and reporting. When a 5 o'clock anchor position opened in Baton Rouge in 1990, she decided to go for it. She got the job and for six years anchored the number one 5 o'clock broadcast in the city of Baton Rouge.
Nancy moved to New Orleans in 1996 as weekend anchor at WVUE.
She was asked to anchor the 10 p.m. broadcast with co-anchor John Snell in 1999.
The two anchored all the weekday evening broadcasts for more than a decade.
Nancy has covered amazing stories over the years.
Pope Paul II's visit to Saint Louis and the Canonization of Saint Katherine Drexel in Rome were the highlights of her career.
She was one of only four gulf coast reporters invited to the White House for a one-on-one interview with President George W. Bush on the Katrina Recovery in 2006.
Nancy received the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award in 2018, for 25 years or more of excellence in the Suncoast region
She was honored with a 2012 Emmy award for her special report "Staying in Line." This is the story of an ex-convict whose amazing skills with pen and ink landed his artwork in the Smithsonian.
Her documentary: "Archbishop Hannan and the Kennedys, the Untold Story" won her an Emmy in 2010.
She received her first regional Emmy for her documentary entitled "The Journey Home", the story of descendants of slaves buying the plantation that their ancestors built in St. John Parish.
Reporting and documentary work have also earned Nancy five Edward R. Murrow awards and several Associated Press and press club awards.
In 2010, Nancy fulfilled another lifelong dream.
Her first children's book. "The Adventures of Yat and Dat What's Cookin," was published by Ampersand Inc. of Chicago, Illinois.
Her second children’s book, “The Adventures of Yat and Dat: Superdome” was released in the summer of 2013. Both books are available on Amazon.com and local bookstores.
Nancy's proudest accomplishments are her children, twins Piper and Pierce, and her son Parker.
Nancy has been married for twenty-three years to longtime newsman and now JPSO public information officer Glynn Boyd.
She was very active in the community, honored twice by New Orleans Magazine as one of its "People to Watch." She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc and is active in the New Orleans Alumnae Chapter.
Nancy was also committed to the fight against Breast Cancer, volunteering as emcee of the American Cancer Society's Hope Gala for almost a decade.
Her mother, Patsy Parker, is a 23-year cancer survivor.
Nancy has served on the Boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters, Dress for Success, and was recently asked to serve on the advisory board of the Cool Cooperative, giving inner city kids hands on experience in the film industry.
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