WABI co-anchor Witt to leave desk after 9 years

BANGOR – Lanie Witt, a news anchor and reporter for WABI-TV 5 the past 10 years, will leave the station March 30 to work for Eastern Maine Healthcare, parent company of Eastern Maine Medical Center.

Her boss and co-anchor, Jim Morris, said Monday that Witt’s departure will mark the end of one of the longest on-air teams in Bangor-area television.

Witt, 34, has co-anchored the CBS affiliate’s 5:30 p.m. newscast with Morris for nine of the 10 years she has been in Bangor.

“It was a hard decision,” Witt said in an interview Monday. “It wasn’t like I just woke up one day and decided to leave,” she said, adding that her 4-year-old daughter played a role in her decision. “The older you get, the more your life changes and you have to change with it.”

She will become a community relations associate with Eastern Maine Healthcare.

Witt, a Tucson, Ariz., native and graduate of the University of Arizona, accepted a job at WABI in 1994 and moved to Maine where she “didn’t know a soul,” she said.

In less than a year, she was co-anchoring the early evening newscast with Morris, who called his bond with Witt “the best professional relationship of my career.”

Witt also formed her most important personal relationship at WABI: It is where she met her husband, Craig Colson, who co-anchors the station’s 6 p.m. newscast.

Witt’s father-in-law, Don Colson, was a longtime news anchor at WABI before he retired in November 2001.

Station Manager Mike Young could not be reached for comment Monday, but Morris, who is the station’s news director, said Witt leaves WABI with the station’s encouragement and blessing.

“Professionally and selfishly, I’d like to keep her forever,” Morris said. “She became like a sister … a sister I got along with.

“It didn’t occur to me until someone pointed it out the other day, but I don’t think there has been an anchor team together longer than Lanie and I,” Morris said.

Witt said her decision was particularly hard because she fell in love with her work in television and the viewers who welcomed her into their lives.

“Every day I wake up I’m always surprised at how accepting the viewers have been,” she said. “So many people have been willing to share their stories, and [giving that up] will be the hardest part.”

Morris said finding a successor to Witt will be difficult, but he didn’t rule out the possibility that the new co-anchor could be an internal candidate.