Family tradition
Robin Baumgarten Trost (left) and her daughters, Anna (center) and Mary Piacente, celebrate Anna’s second Illinois degree at the May 2024 Commencement. Mary is a U. of I. sophomore. (Image courtesy of Robin Baumgarten Trost) She anchors the beating heart of Chicago five days a week, from god-awful early to 10 a.m., out in front of the breaking stories, the features and the crazy vignettes that comprise WGN TV’s Morning News. Along with colleagues Larry Potash, Paul Konrad and Pat Tomasulo, Robin Baumgarten Trost, MEDIA ’90, is the soul of this long-running package of live infotainment, which has rated as the Windy City’s No. 1 news show for the past 13 years.
Attending the U. of I. is something of a Baumgarten family tradition; her mom, Dolores Reis Baumgarten, ’77 UIC, MED ’82 UIC; sister Becky Baumgarten Weslow, ’89 ED; niece Molly Weslow Barker, ’15 ED; and uncles Dean, ’72 FAA, MARCH ’73, and John Baumgarten, ’58 BUS, MBA ’72, are all Illini.
At Illinois, Robin found her future on student radio station WPGU. “I was the news reporter for morning drive time,” she recalls. “I had a talk show on Sunday night by the time I was done.” After graduation, she returned to Chicago and began reporting for Shadow Traffic, driving around and calling in snarls and bottlenecks. When she vaulted to a news-and-traffic beat on WGN’s helicopter, vertiginous adventures ensued—like hovering near activist Dan Goodwin, as he scaled the John Hancock Building in 1981. “They were calling him ‘Spider-Man,’” Trost says.
Three Emmys for reporting came her way. Then, the Morning News anchor desk, where she has sat for 20 years, enchanting viewers with her backlit gray eyes and ready wit. The team handles everything from breaking news to WGN’s’ “ginormous” St. Patrick’s Day party. She excels at quirky, hilarious sketches, such as dressing a Barbie in cold cuts as the edible centerpiece for a bridal shower.
Meanwhile, the Baumgarten family added two more to its Illini ranks. Robin’s daughter Mary Piacente is now a sophomore at Illinois, following the siren call of journalism. This past summer, she interned at CBS Evening News in Washington, D.C. In May, Mary’s older sister, Anna Piacente, ’23 BUS, MS ’24 BUS, graduated Illinois a second time, with a master’s in accountancy.
“The U. of I. served me well,” Robin says. “I hope it serves them well, too.”
