Beloved news anchor leaves Macon’s 13WMAZ after 3 decades, prepares to expand family
Suzanne Lawler, a beloved news anchor and reporter who spent 30 years with 13WMAZ, has left the station.
Lawler said the decision to step away from life as a news anchor came down to wanting to expand her family.
“It was my decision to leave because my wife and I are about to adopt three beautiful and active children,” she said. “I’ve worked every weekend unless I had vacation time for close to 30-years and for that reason I decided to step away - and getting up at 2:15 in the morning is a requirement I’m happy to leave behind.”
Jeff Dudley, 13WMAZ president and general manager, said the station was grateful for Lawler’s work.
“We thank Suzanne for her many years of service,” he said.
Lawler took to social media to share the news.
Lawler’s career with Channel 13 started in September 1994 when she was hired to anchor Weekend Morning and become a correspondent for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
After covering the Olympics, and the Olympic Park bombing, she returned to general assignment reporting and anchoring the Weekend Morning show. A brief stint as sports anchor on the evening newscast followed.
Lawler was part of Tegna’s traveling journalist program, which took her to different stations throughout the Eastern Seaboard. She reported in Little Rock, drove to Washington, D.C., for Super Storm Sandy, and assisted the station’s Tampa affiliate with the Republican National Convention in 2010.
Lawler earned numerous awards along the way, including a Children’s Miracle Network trophy for best music video, regional Edward R. Murrow award for a story from the Little League World Series and Association of Broadcaster recognitions.
Lawler said she has also trained countless young journalists.
“It was a running joke in the newsroom that probably nobody else in news had trained as many producers as the countless that came through on the Weekend Morning shift through the years,” she said.
Lawler is now continuing her heartfelt work with the American Red Cross.
Lawler said she believes in the American Red Cross mission to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. She said she looks forward to telling the incredible stories of volunteers and sharing the courage and strength of military service men and women.
“Every two seconds in this country someone needs blood and I’ll also be working on stories to let folks know how their blood is processed, where it goes and how it does save lives,” she said. “I will deploy on disaster missions and hope to be of continued service to people our team meets and helps in some of their darkest days.”
Lawler said she will also share the information and emotion from volunteers rushing to the scene of house fires, which are the deadliest and most frequent type of disaster the Red Cross deals with everyday.
Lawler said she has many friends at WMAZ and many friends because of WMAZ. She said it’s a chapter in her life that she will always look fondly upon and know that she left an indelible mark in journalism.
“I will always cherish my time at the station and have fond memories of all of the people I met along the way. Folks often ask about my favorite story and I’ve got to say I never had one,” she said. “Sure, there were big political events, historic weather situations I got to cover like Katrina and Sandy, touching events like the Little League World Series and stories that would break your heart.
“But every day I fell in love with the person I got to talk to and had the honor of telling their story in that eight-hour shift - any of the people I met went on to become life-long friends.”
