For Brett Brooks, working at an ABC affiliate station became a dream come true when she began working at Heart of Illinois ABC, a subchannel of WEEK, the NBC affiliate station in Peoria, in the spring of 2022.
She grew up watching ABC’s “Good Morning America” on WLS-TV in Chicago.
“I always knew I was an ABC girl,” Brooks said.
To be honest, it wasn’t just the dream of being on the Alphabet Network – and Peacock for that matter – that drew her to Peoria. She quickly became so enamored with the city that she would have loved to stay there a little longer.
“I hit the ground running pretty much from the beginning,” Brooks said. “I was able to meet a lot of important community members, whether they were in leadership positions, people on the ground, or people who do day-to-day tasks in the community. It was beautiful and I loved it. I was able to make a lot of connections with people pretty much from the moment I got here.”
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Departure from WEEK-TV
Unfortunately, the network ended its collaboration with Brooks in May, exactly two years after she started. She openly admitted that the decision was not hers, but was still proud of her time there.
“It’s such a storied station that’s been around for 70 years,” Brooks said. “When you walk in, you see all the awards they’ve won, and I’m lucky enough to have one of the awards I won hanging on the wall. Just to work for an NBC and ABC affiliate is a dream come true.”
Brooks came to Peoria after a two-year hiatus in Hawaii, where she tried to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic in some kind of peace – away from the hustle and bustle of the news business. She graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 2014 and the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield a year later. She then worked in Rockford at WTVO, an ABC and FOX affiliate, as a daytime reporter and in Decatur as a producer at WAND, an NBC affiliate.
While working in Rockford, she also won the Miss Illinois Earth USA pageant in 2019 and eventually became the executive director of the Illinois and Wisconsin pageants. She has been competing in beauty pageants for at least a decade and has been crowned Miss Illinois four times.
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Modeling, meteorology and a love for Peoria
In Peoria, Brooks realized she was working in what she called a “small big city,” with a community that not only motivated her to come to Peoria, but also to maintain that connection for as long as possible.
“The community is what drew me to Peoria, and the community members are the reason I stayed,” Brooks said.
At WEEK, Brooks won an Illinois News Broadcasters Award for a story about Nance Legins-Costley, the first black man to be freed by Abraham Lincoln in 1841. Such stories made long-form work much more appealing to her. After she was fired from the station, she decided to move more into documentary filmmaking and worked on a project about David Strother, the first black man to vote in Illinois.
“He’s from El Paso and they’re opening a museum for him there,” Brooks said.
While she remains in Peoria, Brooks will also take some meteorology courses at the College of DuPage and try to fulfill a lifelong dream she almost achieved during her time at WEEK.
“I was only three courses away from completing a minor in broadcast meteorology (at EIU),” Brooks said. “I’m going to CoD to complete that minor.”
She has also signed a modeling contract and will be appearing in some fashion shows and on the runway in the meantime. And for anyone worried that she won’t be appearing on TV, Brooks said she will appear in the upcoming seventh season of the Showtime series. The ChiThe premiere is planned for later this year.
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She reiterated that it was not her decision to leave WEEK, but believes Peoria is a vibrant community with people who have bright futures ahead of them regardless of their circumstances.
“I still love Peoria,” Brooks said. “If I could keep doing what I’m doing, I would. I think there’s so much life here, so much vibrancy, so much action. A lot of people I’ve met my age can tell me they’re going to do something great here in the next few years. I’ve seen it happen, I’ve seen ideas, I’ve seen people with big ideas move here. I’ve seen the fashion scene grow. Peoria Fashion Week is becoming more and more here. I see so much growth in the next 5-10 years.”
