Craig Melvin to replace Hoda Kotb on the ‘Today’ show, what are the ties to SC?

On November 15, 2024By Littum

Wofford College graduate and South Carolina native Craig Melvin will replace Hoda Kotb as the new “Today” co-anchor in 2025.

“I’m beyond excited and grateful,” Craig said on the show. “I have only enjoyed a lifetime of blessings and this is the latest in a long line of blessings.”

Savannah Guthrie announced the news on Thursday morning’s “Today” show. Craig will succeed Kotb starting on January 13, 2025, after her last day on Friday, January 10, a “celebration” day.

“We’re so excited about the news in our ‘Today’ family, and that’s the person sitting right next to me,” Savannah said. “Our dear friend and talented, wonderful, hard-working, most worthy of this: Craig Melvin is the new anchor of the Today show.

“This is one of the most popular decisions NBC News has ever made,” she said.

His fellow “Today” show hosts joined in the congratulations.

“You are literally made for this job,” Kotb said. “You’re that good. You have all the things that this job needs. You’re the right person for it.”

Weatherman Al Roker also joined the call via video. “I knew this day would come,” Roker said. “I’m so proud and so happy for you right now because you’re so worthy of this. I’m at a loss for words.”

Melvin shared his love for Kotb and Guthrie.

“I didn’t have sisters, but you are the sisters I never knew I needed,” Melvin said.

Who is Craig Melvin?

According to a USA TODAY articleMelvin has been with NBC and MSNBC since 2011, joining as an MSNBC Live anchor through 2022 and an NBC News correspondent since 2012. The Emmy-winning journalist is also a “Dateline” anchor and has been with “Today” since 2018.

According to the USA TODAY article, he has been married to sports anchor and reporter Lindsay Czarniak since 2011, and they share two children, Sybil and Delano.

What are Craig Melvin’s ties to Wofford, South Carolina?

Melvin is a Columbia native and graduate of Columbia High School. He started his broadcasting career while in high school, working for WIS-TV in Columbia.

He is a 2001 graduate of Wofford College where he majored in government.

“Six years later, and a few weeks after leaving Wofford with my diploma in hand, I found myself working at the same station (WIS-TV) and I was thrilled. For me, the newsroom was a professional paradise—the constant hustle and bustle and a new and exciting story to be told every day,” Melvin said in a 2020 Spartanburg Magazine cover story.

Besides his hometown of Columbia, Melvin still has a great love for Spartanburg.

“Behind Columbia, Spartanburg is where I have the strongest connections anywhere, not just in South Carolina,” he told Spartanburg Magazine in 2020. “My four years at 429 North Church Street (Wofford’s address) were among the most formative of my life, hands down. Wofford was academically challenging, and I was just finding out who I was at Spartanburg. Some of my dearest friends were planted at Spartanburg, or Sparkle City, as we affectionately called it.”

In the 2020 Spartanburg Magazine article, Melvin also praised his parents highly.

“The major influences in my life were – and it sounds cliche – my parents. My mother was the first in the family to go to college, and my father worked third shift as a post office clerk for 40 years – working that shift for the extra hours for his family. He sacrificed a lot and so did she. Later she was a school teacher.”

Jose Franco is a content coach for the Greenville News, Spartanburg Herald-Journal and Anderson Independent-Mail.