Nancy Parker

Notable work and positions

WVUE FOX 8 (New Orleans) — Anchor and Reporter (1996–2019)
WAFB-TV (Baton Rouge) — Former Anchor (1990–1996)

Biography

Nancy Parker (1966–2019) was an Emmy Award–winning television journalist who spent nearly 30 years covering news in South Louisiana. A native of Opelika, Alabama, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from the University of Alabama in 1988. She anchored the top-rated 5 p.m. broadcast in Baton Rouge at WAFB-TV from 1990 to 1996, then moved to New Orleans as weekend anchor at WVUE FOX 8 in 1996. In 1999 she began co-anchoring the station's 10 p.m. weekday broadcast alongside John Snell, a role the pair held for more than a decade, before she moved to anchor FOX 8 Morning Edition. Over her career she won five Emmy Awards and was an eight-time nominee, along with five Edward R. Murrow Awards, several Associated Press and press club awards, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award in 2018. She authored two children's books, The Adventures of Yat and Dat: What's Cookin' (2010) and The Adventures of Yat and Dat: Superdome (2013). Parker died on August 16, 2019, in a small-plane crash near New Orleans Lakefront Airport while reporting a story on the pilot, Franklin J.P. Augustus, who also died in the crash.