Detroit anchors Huel Perkins and Monica Gayle are retiring from Fox owned station WJBK at the end of March.
The anchors announced their retirement together at the end of Wednesday’s 6 p.m. newscast. Their last show will be on Friday, March 25.
“Before we go, some breaking personal news tonight, after 40-plus years in broadcasting and 32 years here at Fox 2, I’ve decided to retire at the end of March,” said Huel. “I’ve had a wonderful career, and I thank all you for your support. I am grateful for my family, my wife Priscilla and our sons, Jared and Vincent. And I’m also grateful to my Fox 2 family, the people you see on TV and also the people behind the scenes—who make it all possible. ”
“And I also want to thank the woman with whom I’ve shared this anchor desk—for more than two decades, my friend, Monica Gayle, who has an announcement of her own.”
“I have been so honored and blessed to share this desk with you,” said Gayle. “I could not ask for a better co-anchor and it just feels very right that we go out together as a team. I have been so honored and blessed to share this desk with you, my friend. This year I am celebrating 40 memorable years in television news. Twenty-five of those wonderful years have been right here with you at Fox 2. I couldn’t ask for a better co-anchor and it just feels very right that we go out together as a team. We’ve had a pretty amazing run.
“I, too, am forever grateful to my husband Dean and our son Tanner, for being my biggest cheerleaders. Both of our families have been our anchors at home, so we could do what we do here every night.”
WJBK news director Kevin Roseborough said the integrity, leadership and commitment shown by the two anchors is “unsurpassed.”
“Their professionalism and reliability in circumstances both good and bad leave an indelible mark on our region,” said Roseborough. “In what can be a grinding business, very few news teams are able to achieve and maintain a standard of excellence over decades. This team has done it.”
Perkins joined WJBK in 1989 when the station was known as TV-2. In his 33 years in Detroit, Perkins traveled the country with Nelson Mandela, followed the Pope and covered nearly every major political convention.
Gayle joined the station in 1997 after anchoring and reporting in what her bio described as “a number of top rated television markets and at the network level for CBS News in New York during her 30-plus year career.”