(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Merri Dee — an icon in Chicago broadcasting — has passed away at the age of 85.
Her death was reported Wednesday by WGN-TV, where Dee had been a news anchor and community relations director. Ms. Dee died in her sleep at her home, according to a family message posted on her website.
Ms. Dee was born in Chicago on Oct. 30, 1936, but her mother died when she was 2, and her stepmother was abusive, she had told the Sun-Times.
“She overcame adversity over and over again,” WGN said on its website. “She was an author, a motivational speaker, a panelist, a career coach and an advocate for violence prevention.”
Ms. Dee retired from the station in 2008 after more than four decades in broadcasting. Besides her accomplishments in broadcasting, she was remembered for a harrowing incident in her life: escaping death in a kidnapping and shooting after hosting a show on Channel 44 in 1971.
“If you’re going to live, you have to be determined to live,” she wrote in her 2013 memoir, “Life Lessons on Faith, Forgiveness & Grace.” “If you have any kind of trauma, you have to tell yourself you don’t deserve worse, you deserve better.”
She was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists' Hall of Fame in 2011.
Ms. Dee is survived by her husband and two children.
Contributing: Sun-Times Media Wire
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