Total Solar Eclipse: FOX 4 employees talk about their experiences covering eclipses

FOX 4 employees recall 2017 solar eclipse

As we get ready for the total solar eclipse in North Texas on April 8th, members of the FOX 4 team who were in the path of totality for the 2017 solar eclipse share what to expect from the moment.

DALLAS - When you work in TV news, you move around quite a bit.

Three FOX 4 employees, one who was already working here at the time, got to be in the path of totality back in 2017.

They shared their experiences.

If you were in North Texas in 2017, then you may recall the beauty that was the partial solar eclipse.

The total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, was photographed from Madras, Oregon. The black circle in the middle is the Moon. Surrounding it are white streams of light belonging to the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona. (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

Some people that year we're lucky enough to be in the path of totality.

FOX 4 producer Annie Vogeler was working at a TV station in Des Moines, Iowa at the time.

She and a crew drove to St. Joseph, Missouri to do a remote shoot.

"Just RVs everywhere," she recalled.

She remembers it being cloudy that day. Then, at just the right time, the clouds opened up.

"For about 15 seconds, only during the point of totality, did the clouds clear up," she said. "And it was crazy because the sky was so dark."

FOX 4 photojournalist Marc Gustafson was working that day too. He was at a station in Little Rock, Arkansas.

"They called that one the Great American Eclipse," he recalled.

He remembers driving with a meteorologist to Paducah, Kentucky to be in the path of totality.

"We just talked and talked and talked the whole way about how cool this was going to be," he said.

It was cool, but it was also a little hectic at the site, where hundreds of people had gathered on a wide-open field along the Ohio River.

"I think our meteorologist did drop to the ground. He was that taken aback, and I'm just trying to make sure it stays in frame on my camera because, again, I'm working," he said.

FOX 4 Good Day producer and astronomy enthusiast Arnold Evans was off the clock when he got to soak in the total eclipse at a ranch in Cedar Hill, Missouri with some friends.

"I had to yell. ‘Okay, everybody take off your glasses and look.’ I want to say I literally fell to the ground, it was a weird, stunning, strange, awesome view," he said. "You start to hear crickets, maybe tree frogs, whatever else. It was like the sun was setting."

The significance of this monumental moment in time is not lost on these three journalists.

"There were so many cheers and people hooting and hollering," Vogeler said.

Vogeler plans to view the total eclipse on Monday from her backyard along with her 4-month-old son.

Gustafson will be in Ennis, working again.

Evans will get to enjoy it again, since he’s producing Good Day and will be off at 10 a.m.