Mikaya Milan Thurmond is an American television journalist, who formerly worked as a weekday morning anchor[1] at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina. An Atlanta, Georgia native, she is the daughter of Mike Thurmond and a graduate of the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia and of Harvard Extension School.[2] She held the title of Miss Georgia 2009 and became the International titleholder for the Miss International Organization in 2010.[3] Before joining WRAL, Thurmond was a reporter at WTVC-TV.
In February 2022, she became the benefactor of the Mikaya Thurmond Scholarship that will be available to contestants in the Miss North Carolina competition to encourage women to study journalism.[4] On July 25, 2022 she announced her departure from WRAL-TV effective August 12, 2022. [5]