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Pet People: WOWT’s Jill Gilardi
We’re always scouring social media, reading magazines, and watching pet-related videos and television. When we stumbled upon a photo of one of WOWT’s meteorologists, Jill Gilardi, at Junkstock with a goat, we were intrigued. Of all the cool stuff at the event, she’s taking a photo of a goat? Ah ha! She must be an animal person! We dug a little deeper, and found out she is undoubtedly a pet lover (in fact her Twitter bio says so…)
What attracted us to Gilardi was not only the ubiquitous Twitpic, but her bubbly personality and indication that she and animals are mutual fans. In fact, she’s got a 9-year-old Chihuahua named Miko, and three formerly stray cats she’s helped to rescue and take great care of. Cole, Crusty, and Cali are her kitty companions. Miko’s been around a while, but when given the opportunity to provide her cats a safe house, she excitedly jumped at the chance.
Born and raised in the Northeast (Massachusetts to be exact), her love for animals goes back as far as she can remember. “I’ve been (an animal lover) since being a little girl and I haven’t stopped.”
At their home in the downtown area, Miko and her little kitten buddies are pretty independent. Miko keeps herself occupied inside their home while mom is at work and the three cats are given free reign of both the inside and outside parts of the house. This is surely a great benefit with Gilardi’s busy, always-on-call occupation as a weather woman at Channel 6 here in Omaha.
In her free time, Gilardi says she loves television, sports, artwork and fitness, but being with her little pup and felines is definitely her favorite free time activity. Being a downtown resident, she loves visiting the Old Market District, but she’s also an avid zoo-goer. More animal interest- surprise, surprise!
Gilardi has been at WOWT since September of 2011; before that, she cut her teeth in St. Joe and Springfield, MO. Since she’s such an animal lover and been around the Heartland for so long, we at PetsInOmaha are claiming her as a Midwesterner and member of OUR animal community! She’s the type of pet parent we should all be and we appreciate her greatly for that.
During our interview, we also wanted to offer up some questions so we (and the rest of the community) could get to know her on a more personal level. When asked about the moment when she realized her life would be committed to the weather, Gilardi says she thinks was “about five years old when she fell in love with meteorology and her parents encouraged her to pursue her dream.” We’re glad she did. “I loved watching weather maps and the sky, so that’s where it all began.”
Gilardi attended college at Lyndon State in Vermont and mastered her craft. Gilardi says her proudest moment was landing her first job. Her career path has led her to Omaha and she’s been a fixture on television in our viewing area since.
Miko, Cole, Crusty and Cali should be happy to have a mom like Jill and we should all be thankful she’s a member of our pet community here in Omaha. You can become a fan of her on Facebook here and follow her on Twitter @jillgilardi. With 7,500 followers between the two social media sites, it’s clear she has many fans. She gained a few more from us here at petsinomaha.com and we hope you recognize her great talent and as a great asset to our city.
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