Changes at the very top of the local TV news anchor hierarchy are few and far between. Reporters come and go, but the standard bearers at Fox4, NBC5, WFAA and CBS11 tend to come at you night after night after night. Sometimes they even span generations.

Until this month, the last departure had been WFAA veteran Gloria Campos, who retired amid much fanfare in March of 2014. On Thursday of last week, CBS11’s weeknight co-anchor, Kaley O’Kelley, announced rather suddenly on her Facebook page and to the newsroom that she’ll be leaving the station to pursue a “better work/life balance.” Her last day is scheduled for Wednesday, May 23, not coincidentally the closing night of the May “sweeps” ratings period.

O’Kelley, who began teaming with incumbent CBS11 anchor Doug Dunbar in January 2015, said via Facebook that she is “definitely NOT leaving my career forever. Instead I’m giving myself some time to focus on my family and other interests . . . I look forward to other opportunities later, but for now I will focus on slowing my life down.”

She elaborated in later comments to your friendly correspondent.

“My decision isn’t only about ‘going home to spend time with my kids,’” O’Kelley said. “I enjoy working. But being away from my family at night doesn’t allow me to be the kind of mom I want to be. I am grateful to CBS11 for the opportunity to anchor their prime-time newscasts and their generous offer to stay on the nightside shift. Being a weekend mom, though, isn’t enough for me and I’m positive there IS an opportunity that offers a better-fitting schedule for my family.”

O’Kelley and her husband have two young children. In January of this year, she had a health scare after being hit with what she called “excruciating pain just before the holidays.” She took an extended leave of absence to undergo a hysterectomy by the same Scottsdale, Ariz.-based doctor who delivered her children. In O’Kelley’s words, her doctor had expressed “some serious concerns about what is happening.” This latest surgery came after O’Kelley had a “cancer scare” a couple of years ago. At that time, her doctor removed an ovarian cyst and both of her fallopian tubes.

O’Kelley did not list any health concerns as reasons for leaving CBS11. She had returned to the station in March after roughly six weeks off the air.

CBS11 director of communications Lori Conrad said the station has “nothing to announce at this point” regarding an interim or permanent successor for O’Kelley. During her earlier leave of absence, staffer Gilma Avalos filled in.

O’Kelley joined CBS11 from Phoenix’s KTVK-TV, replacing Karen Borta on the 5, 6 and 10 p.m. weeknight newscasts after she accepted a transfer to the station’s early morning shift, where she remains.

Borta likewise cited family considerations at the time, saying in a statement that anchoring in the a.m. “seemed almost too good to be true. Professionally, it’s an exciting challenge which will allow me to spread my wings a bit. But more important to me personally is that this is incredibly awesome for my family life. My three children are now in high school and junior high. This new schedule will finally allow me to do the things that so many people take for granted, such as eating dinner with my family and attending my kids’ weeknight games — all things I often missed when working nights.”

CBS11 continues to struggle in both the early morning and late night newscast ratings while fans of Borta speculate that perhaps she’ll return to the late shift where she co-anchored with Tracy Rowlett and then Dunbar.

Meanwhile, what about the featured news anchors at the three rival TV news stations?

Meredith Land and Brian Curtis, with anchor/reporter Kristi Nelson also regularly sitting in, look like they’re solidly in place for the near future at least. And Fox4’s trio of Steve Eagar and Heather Hays (at 6 and 9 p.m.) and Clarice Tinsley (soloing at 10 p.m.) also look good to go for quite some time. Tinsley, the dean of local TV anchors, would have to be dynamited out of her chair.

That leaves WFAA, whose longtime anchor John McCaa earned a PhD three years ago from the University of Texas at Dallas. McCaa long has talked about teaching after earning this degree, and lately is talking about possibly leaving WFAA at the end of this year. But the emphasis is still on “possibly.” His co-anchor, Cynthia Izaguirre, looks entrenched for years to come.