LEXINGTON, Ky. — On Tuesday, Sue Wylie, Lexington’s first female anchor who was a trailblazer for women in journalism, died from injuries she sustained in a car crash. 

What You Need To Know

  •  Sue Wylie was an anchor for LEX-18 and was Lexington's first female anchor

  •  Wylie had several accomplishments. She anchored and produced "Noon Today" and started "Your Government"

  •  She had several big-name people on her show, "Your Government," such as Jimmy Carter, Senator Kennedy and Ronald Regan

  • Dave Krusenklaus with WVLK worked with Wylie for several years and paid tribute to her on his talk show

Wylie was 90 years old.

Community members paid tribute to Wylie throughout the day on Wednesday, including WVLK, a radio station in Lexington.

Dave Krusenklaus, better known as Kruser, at WVLK got to know Wylie through his time with LEX-18 as a feature reporter while she was an anchor there. They got even closer when he started a talk show with WVLK in 1999; Wylie already had her own talk show there.

She retired about 10 years ago, but still got invited to be a WVLK guest a few times a year. As recently as Monday, she participated in a segment for an hour.

Sue Wylie was the first female anchor in Lexington and had several accomplishments throughout her career. (Mike Taylor)

“Her show did extremely well here,” said Kruser. “Obviously, she was a trailblazer in television so we all admired her and respected her, but we liked her. She was fun.”

Kruser shared anecdotes with his listeners on Wednesday about Wylie and talked about her accomplishments. Among them was that she anchored and produced a midday news program, “Noon Today.” She also started a political show called “Your Government,” which was extremely successful.

“We had presidents … We had Jimmy Carter; we had Senator Kennedy. We had Ronald Regan,” said Wylie in an interview we had with her back in March.

Seeing how the industry has changed for women was a highlight for Wylie.

“Now, of course, you turn on television and women outnumber men. It’s just wonderful,” said Wylie.

Kruser credited Wylie for that.

“Her legacy, I think, can be best expressed by the number of women who work in television news in Central Kentucky and Sue Wylie busted that door down,” said Kruser.

But above all else, Kruser remembered the kind of person she was. He said she was a hard-worker, someone who you could joke with and who cared about her community.

“We’ll miss her … We’ll miss her,” said Kruser. “We missed her when she left here and now we miss her even more because we’ll never see her again, but her presence will never leave us. It will be felt for a long time.”

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