Maureen Kyle, morning anchor at WKYC 3 is like most moms — juggling it all — work, parenting and home life. However, she wouldn’t do it anywhere else, but here, in Northeast Ohio, where her family roots run deep on the West Side of Cleveland.
Kyle was born in Lakewood, but then raised in Westlake. She said her family originally moved here in the 1800s and her great, great grandfather, a clockmaker, had a foundry in Tremont. Her parents grew up in Parma and Parma Heights, where her grandfather was mayor of Parma Heights.
Her interest in a broadcast news career began with an encounter with a local sportscaster Jim Donovan who was interviewing her father, Chuck Kyle, the head football coach and English teacher at St. Ignatius High School.
“I remember (Donovan) talking to my dad and thinking, ‘this is amazing, this is this guy’s job. He gets to talk to people and then it’s on TV,’” Kyle says. “And from that point on —just with the media being in and out of our lives with my dad’s career — I got exposed to what it entails and how fun it is. I just always felt like this is what I wanted to do and I never had another thought of any other career.”
She went onto college in New York and her first broadcasting job was in Louisville, Ky., but always hoped to come back home. She says “she knocked on doors” in town and the first one opened was WKYC 3, where she has spent much of her career either out in the field or now, in the morning anchor position.
Back on the west side, she and her husband Mark McDougall are raising three daughters — Scarlett, 9, Millie, 7, and Etta, 4. 
“We talked about how (Northeast Ohio) has everything all the big cities have, but it’s much more accessible and it’s easier to do everything with the family,” Kyle says. “I think there’s just a whole vibe of Northeast Ohio. The people who are from Northeast Ohio have a great sense of humor, humility and it’s still grounded in Midwestern values.”
The family does have a new addition, Buster, a mixed breed puppy. “He is a super mutt, he is like a mix of everything.” Kyle says of Buster, almost 4-months-old and the family’s first dog.
“It has been really adorable,” she says of her three girls’ interaction with their new four-legged sibling. “Right now they are pretty excited to have the puppy in the house, especially since the oldest (daughter) has been begging for one for so long. I can see why it’s a good responsibility for kids. Just providing that extra responsibility of having to take care of something other than themselves has also taught them little lessons in selflessness, which I like.”
For the busy, working mom, who gets up early due to her morning shift (when we say early, it means for her, 2:30 a.m.) While she has lots to get done during the day, with the help of Zoom and other technology, it has given her a little more flexibility, but not all the time.
“I always joke, ‘I’m a full-time mom, a full time employee and a part-time sleeper,’” she says. “I have an out-of-the-box schedule, but that is how we’ve really made it work. I have to stick to a list and just stay really on top of the schedule,” adding she writes down her to-do list during commercial breaks. “I always told my husband, ‘it’ll work until it doesn’t and then we’ll figure out what to do.’”
While her girls are in multiple after school activities, the family also spends time enjoying what Northeast Ohio has to offer.
“We just got bikes,” Kyle says.“We’ve been hitting up the bike path and trails. We are also close to Huntington Beach and we are always walking or riding our bikes up there. Cedar Point is huge for my family. We hit up a lot of the museums in the winter months and we are always at the Cleveland Zoo in the summer.”
For Kyle, cooking meals is also important. “I just cook super healthy,” she says. “My mom cooked everything from scratch, I probably make it a lot harder on myself, but that is how I grew up. It’s how I still cook and get meals ready. It’s a lot of meats and vegetables. I also need leftovers. I cook at night so that means I least have lunch prepared the next day with leftovers.”
“I want to show my daughters that if they want to be married, have a family, have a career, that they can do it,” Kyle adds.
In fact, for WKYC’s Mom Squad, that provides expert advice on parenting questions on a talk show streaming on their WKYC+ channel, being parents was the big inspiration for creating the squad.
“We (the staff at WKYC 3) all have kids about the same age and we’re all going through working and raising our kids in a world we didn’t grow up in — (such as) the extra technology, added pressures and more sports and activities than we ever dreamed about at earlier ages,” she says. “I think so many parents are looking for answers, help and guidance, so that’s why we called it the squad because you need advice from every angle.”