CHICAGO (CBS) — Merri Dee, a beloved Chicago reporter, broadcaster, and community relations professional, has died.
Dee was 85.
Dee spent nearly all of her career with WGN-TV, Channel 9 – first as a reporter and staff announcer from 1972 until 1983, and then as director of community relations until she retired from the station in 2008.
A graduate of Englewood high School in Chicago, Dee began her broadcasting career at WBEE radio in south suburban Harvey in 1966. She switched to television two years later, hosting programs on WCIU-TV 26 and then WSNS-TV 44.
It was while working at WSNS-TV in 1971 that Dee and one of her guests, psychic Alan Sandler, were kidnapped outside the station. Each was shot in the head, and Sandler was killed, while Dee was left for dead.
But Dee managed to crawl away and seek help.
“I immediately thought about my family, I thought about my daughter,” Dee told CBS 2 in 2011. “My daughter was 12 years old.”
She almost died and was left temporarily blind. Dee worked through a difficult recovery and resumed her career the following year at WGN-TV.
At WGN, Dee worked 11 years in assorted on-air positions before taking over as director of community relations and manager of the station’s Children’s Charities. She also served as the First Lady of the Illinois Lottery on WGN.
Dee was also appointed to serve as an official U.S. Army ambassador, and was appointed to by Mayor Richard M. Daley to serve on the Mayor’s Council on Women’s Issues. She also served as a commissioner on the Illinois Human Rights commission, and as the Illinois State President for AARP.