Kristi Marie Capel (born July 7, 1983) is a television newscaster from

Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...

Pageants and education

Capel is a native of

Florence, Kentucky Florence is a home rule-class city in Boone County, Kentucky, United States. Florence is the second largest city located in Northern Kentucky, after Covington, and part of the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan Area. The population was 31,946 at ...

who later moved to

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

. She competed in the

Miss Missouri USA The Miss Missouri USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state Missouri in the Miss USA pageant. It is directed by Vanbros and Associates, based in Lenexa, Kansas. In 1993, Missouri joined the Vanbros group of st ...

pageant in late 2005 and won. She had placed in the top fifteen of the

Miss Kentucky USA The Miss Kentucky USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Kentucky in the Miss USA pageant. It is currently directed by Proctor Productions and it was formerly directed by Connie Clark Harrison, Miss Ken ...

pageant the year previous. Capel represented

in the

Miss USA 2006 Miss USA 2006 was the 55th Miss USA pageant, held at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland on April 21, 2006. Fifty-one state titleholders competed for the title, which was won by Tara Conner of Kentucky. Conner was crowned by outgoing t ...

pageant in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

in April 2006, in which she did not place. Capel graduated from Heritage Academy (a parochial school affiliated with the Assemblies of God) in Kentucky in 2001. She won a volleyball scholarship to

Evangel University Evangel University is a private Christian university and seminary in Springfield, Missouri. It is affiliated with the Assemblies of God Christian denomination, which is also headquartered in Springfield. The campus sits on that were originally ...

, a religious school affiliated with the Assemblies of God, where she completed a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

Broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting beg ...

and

Public Relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...

with honors in 2005.

Career

She was recently employed as a television reporter, co-anchor and weekend weather anchor on ABC affiliate

KSPR KSPR-LD (channel 33) is a low-power television station in Springfield, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside NBC affiliate KYTV (channel 3) and Branson-licensed CW affiliate KYCW-LD (channe ...

Springfield 33 News. Capel also worked as a radio personality at 99 Hit FM and 1340 AM KADI during much of 2006. In January 2008, Capel accepted a job as a weather forecaster for the television station

WBRE-TV WBRE-TV (channel 28) is a television station licensed to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to Scranton-licens ...

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It is the s ...

. She moved to

WJW (TV) WJW (channel 8) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, WJW maintains studios on Dick Goddard Way (named for the station's late longtime weatherman—previousl ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

on January 7, 2011. In January 2012, Capel was named Morning Co-Anchor of Fox 8 News in Morning, she replaced Tracy McCool who went to anchor Fox 8 News at 5PM. On February 23, 2015, Capel made headlines for using the term " jigaboo" in reference to

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...

's performance at the

87th Academy Awards The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2014 and took place on February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 ...

. Lady Gaga performed a tribute to Julie Andrews and ''

The Sound of Music ''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. S ...

'', with a medley of songs from the film. Of Lady Gaga's performance, Capel remarked, "Lady Gaga surprising a lot of people last night with this tribute to Sound of Music," and added that actress Julie Andrews called it "wonderful." Capel went on to say "It's hard to really hear her voice with all the jigaboo music — whatever you want to call it — jigaboo." "She has a gorgeous voice. I never knew." After the nature of the term as a

racial slur The following is a list of ethnic slurs or ethnophaulisms or ethnic epithets that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorative, or oth ...

was noted online, Capel apologized. She claimed ignorance of the word, later tweeting, "I apologize if I offended you, I had no idea it was a word or what it meant. Thank you for watching." Fox 8 news director Andy Fishman responded to the controversy saying, "Kristi apologized on the air shortly after making the remark. She did not know what the word meant but that is no excuse for using it," Fishman also said, "We have spoken with her and are confident nothing like this will happen again."

References

External links

Missouri pageant winners crowned
The Kansas City Star, 5 December 2005 (accessed 1 May 2006)
TV reporter has chance at Miss USA
News Leader, 5 December 2005 (accessed 1 May 2006)
WBRE-TV, 2008
(accessed 31 March 2008)
Miss Missouri USA website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Capel, Kristi 1983 births Living people Miss USA 2006 delegates People from Florence, Kentucky Evangel University alumni