Julie Moravchick has been hired as news director at WDAZ, the ABC affiliate in Grand Forks, N.D., according to the Duluth News Tribune.

Moravchik is a former producer at KQDS, the Fox affiliate in Duluth. She has also worked as news director of WAST in Ashland and as a at reporter WDIO in Duluth. Since 2011, she has been an account executive at Duluth-Superior magazine.

“It was good for me to work at the magazine and try another job and get another perspective,” Moravchik told the News Tribune. “Then you realize how much you miss it. When big news happens, that’s when you really, really realize what you’re supposed to be doing. You’re used to being on the front lines … part of it.”

Rob Hudson will debut later this month as evening co-anchor on WDAZ, the ABC-affiliate in Grand Forks, ND.

Hudson comes to WDAZ from KECI in Missoula, MT, where he was the morning anchor. He has previously worked at KARE in Minneapolis and KSWB in San Diego. He will co-anchor the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts alongside Molly Thorvilson beginning August 27.

“We’re really excited to have him here,” Thorvilson told the Grand Forks Herald. “We’ve been able to spend some time with him, and he’s a really nice guy, really down to Earth.”

Hudson replaces Charley Johnson, who left the station in May.

Charley Johnson, an anchor at WDAZ in Grand Forks, ND, is leaving the news business after more than 30 years.

Johnson was named president and chief executive at the Fargo Moorhead Convention and Visitors Bureau this morning, according to the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He will take over in June.

Johnson has anchored the evening newscasts at WDAZ since 2010. He spent the majority of his career at KVLY, the NBC-affiliate in Fargo, where he held a variety of roles including anchor, news director and general manager.

Marilyn Hagerty, the Grand Forks Herald columnist who has become an internet celebrity for her no-nonsense review of a local Olive Garden, recently sat down with WDAZ reporter Melanie Orlins to discuss her newfound fame.

“Somebody told me I went viral, I didn’t know what that meant,” Hagerty told Orlins. “The phone has been ringing all the time and I’ve been answering it and then the emails keep pouring in and I’ve been trying to keep track of that… I still don’t get it.”

With interview requests flooding her inbox, Hagerty says that she’s probably going to cross Jay Leno off her list of suitors since she doesn’t like the way he combs his hair. Video inside… Read more

Fargo’s KVLY-KXJB is striking back against allegations made by former anchor Robin Huebner, who claimed in The Forum yesterday that she was immediately shown the door after putting in her two-weeks notice.

“No one forced her out,” president and general manager Jim Wareham said in an on-air editorial last night. “We were disappointed to see her go.” Video inside… Read more

Chris Regimbal, who has worked his way up the ranks of WDAZ for the past 19 years, has been named news director of the Grand Forks ABC-affiliate.

Regimbal started with the station as a sports photographer, eventually becoming chief photographer. Most recently, he has served as assignment editor.

“Chris long has shown a solid grasp of local issues and a very keen instinct for finding not-always-obvious stories that matter to local people,” Mike Brue, who worked as WDAZ’s news director from 1996 to 2004, told the Grand Forks Herald. “He’s earned the opportunity to be ‘DAZ’s news director.”

Regimbal succeeds Cassie Walder, who left the station in March.

Cassie Walder is leaving WDAZ in Grand Forks, ND.

Walder, who has been with the ABC-affiliate for the past 10 years, currently serves as news director in addition to anchoring the station’s 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts.

Her longtime boyfriend is in the Air Force and is being transferred from Grand Forks to Washington D.C. Walder plans to join him there at the end of the month.

“I never thought I would leave WDAZ or Grand Forks,” Walder told the Grand Forks Herald, which first reported the move. “I have been happy here. I love the people I work with. We have a great newsroom environment, and it just makes work fun.”

WDAZ serves the northern part of the Grand Forks market, near the Canadian border.