9:36AM Tuesday
December 4, 2012

Dan Ponce Bio:

Dan Ponce is a Chicago television journalist and founder of the renowned a cappella group Straight No Chaser.

His TV career began in 2005 when Dan was hired at WILX-TV in Lansing, Michigan, as a reporter and weekend anchor. In 2006, Dan joined ABC7 News in Chicago as a general assignment reporter.

In 2009, after Straight No Chaser's album "Holiday Spirits" went to #1 on iTunes and Amazon, Dan decided to leave ABC and join the group full time. SNC went on to perform hundreds of concerts throughout the country and record three more albums on the Atlantic Records label. The group's televised concert series "Live in New York" (produced by WTTW) aired on PBS stations coast to coast.

Dan’s father is Phil Ponce, a Chicago television journalist who hosts Chicago Tonight, a nightly television magazine of news and culture on WTTW Channel 11. Dan’s brother is Anthony Ponce, a general assignment reporter for NBC5 WMAQ-TV in Chicago. Dan earned his Master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and his Bachelor's degree from Indiana University - where he founded Straight No Chaser. Dan grew up in Wilmette and currently lives in Chicago.

Anthony Ponce Bio:

Anthony Ponce joined NBC5 News as a general assignment reporter in June of 2007. Before coming to NBC5, Anthony worked as a reporter in Indiana at WISH-TV in Indianapolis and before that, WANE-TV in Fort Wayne. During his time in those cities, Anthony would drive past the Chicago skyline on visits to his parents’ North Side home and dream about working in his hometown.

Anthony grew up in the Chicago area. He attended Indiana University in Bloomington and majored in English and Spanish. At IU he was a three-time member of a bike team in the university’s annual Little 500 bicycle race made famous by the movie "Breaking Away." In 2003, he received a master's degree in journalism from theMedill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

At Medill, Anthony started out on the newspaper track. But one day, the faculty had all the students switch roles: the newspaper students put together a broadcast, and vice versa. Anthony had so much fun that day that he changed his mind (and most of his curriculum) to pursue a career in broadcasting.

Outside of work, Anthony likes to play the piano and guitar, read books, and log as many hours as possible on the lakefront -- preferably running or biking. During the summer of 2002, he rode his bicycle across America with one of his best friends. Anthony considers this ride one of his greatest experiences. The trip took him all the way from Virginia Beach, Va. to San Francisco. Along the way, he met many remarkable and colorful people and camped behind dozens of small-town churches, all raw material for future writing. Anthony is an avid Hoosier basketball fan and a life-long follower of the Bears, Bulls and White Sox. He'll always cherish childhood memories of sitting behind home plate at the old Comiskey, and he's still riding high from the 2005 World Series.

If Anthony's last name sounds familiar to you Chicagoans, it may be because his dad, Phil, is the host of "Chicago Tonight" on WTTW 11 and his older brother, Dan, has reported for WLS-TV and WGN-TV.