Feder: Home at last, anchorman Ray Cortopassi debuts tonight on 'Chicago's Very Own'

Growing up in south suburban Dolton, Ray Cortopassi fondly remembers another Ray - the legendary children's show performer Ray Rayner - who was a fixture on WGN-Channel 9 for 20 years.

Tonight begins the era of a new Ray at "Chicago's Very Own" as Cortopassi debuts alongside Micah Materre as co-anchor of the station's 5, 6, 9 and 10 p.m. Monday-through-Friday newscasts.

Cortopassi, 53, joins the Nexstar Media Group flagship station after a 26-year professional trek from Chicago to Traverse City, Michigan, to Las Vegas to Indianapolis (where he spent two decades as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC and Fox affiliates).

Now the journey brings him back home where he graduated from Columbia College Chicago and launched his career as a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown and a reporter and broadcast editor for City News Bureau of Chicago.

At WGN he replaces Joe Donlon, who held the job for two years before he was named co-anchor "News Nation," Nexstar's primetime newscast on WGN America.

Get the full report, and more Chicago media news, at robertfeder.com.