25 years of reporting in ENC: The fun, laughs, & bloopers

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) -These last 25 years, in addition to bringing you the news, have also been packed with fun, laughs, and bloopers at times.

As I continue to look back on those 25 years I’m reflecting on some of the moments that made us laugh here, and hopefully, you at home as well.

One moment that is indelible for all who worked here at the time, and all of you who saw it, is former WITN chief meteorologist Matt Engelbrecht dressing up as Richard Simmons during our Halloween costume contest in 2014.

We were all taken by surprise by Matt’s antics, perhaps no one more than Heather King, who was our sunrise anchor at the time.

Heather told me, “It was just so over the top. He just took it to a whole new level and I remember his behavior like it was yesterday. It was so dead on. It was the best caricature of Richard Simmons I think we could ever see.”

So what did Matt think of it all? He says, “I knew I had to do something more than what people would expect.”

And on that cold October morning, boy did he.

Matt recalled, “If people are coming out that time of the morning, that kind of temperature putting this amount of effort into the contest then I had no choice. I had to do something that was yeah, humiliating.”

It was also fun to play jokes on Matt, like the time Lynnette Taylor, Billy Weaver, and I did the mannequin challenge. Matt finished his weather segment and came back to us at the desk and we were just frozen like mannequins. We all got a good laugh out of it in the end.

If laughter is the best medicine then I gave former anchor Lindsay Oliver a good dose of it having fun with my pronunciations of the coffee drinks frappuccino and caramel macchiato. She couldn’t stop laughing.

Or maybe you remember last October when former anchor Stacia Strong and I laughed through this line: “A nurse practitioner in Wisconsin has a bone to pick with anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated.”

It took us a while to get it together and try to finish that story. I don’t know that we really ever did.

Sometimes you just never get it together and just have to bail, like former anchor Anna Holloman and I did in 2006 when we had a case of the giggles. We couldn’t stop laughing and had to send it over to chief meteorologist Marvin Daugherty to rescue us.

Over the years we’ve also had fun working on promos, whether we were dancing or putting together Christmas greetings.

Heather King remembers those times, saying, “It was great to have moments where we could just have fun together as a news team because we worked so hard and we brought serious information but just to kind of let people know we’ve got these great senses of humor behind the scenes and we can cut up and have fun too.”

So, while our most important mission at WITN is to report the news and keep you informed, we also realize, like you, there are times you have to smile, laugh, and enjoy.

Heather says, " Doing the news is sort of a vocation because you really have this job to bring very serious information to people, but at the same time you want to bring them levity and lightness and ya know there’s a lot of good in this world which is one of the best things about the morning show, especially Halloween.”

Matt agrees, saying, “Those moments are rare but we certainly don’t forget them.”

Next month I’ll continue my look back at my 25 years at WITN so be sure to be watching for details on that report soon.

To watch and read my September report on my biggest interview you can click here.

To watch and read my August anniversary report on the worst hurricane I covered you can click here

To watch and read my July anniversary report on my favorite places in ENC you can click here.

To watch my June anniversary report on the impact of CMN on lives and a hospital you can click here.

To watch and read my May anniversary report on the biggest mystery I have covered you can click here.

To watch and read my April anniversary report on working through and covering a pandemic you can click here.

To watch and read my March anniversary report on familiar faces and changes through the years you can click here.

To watch and read my February report on my most impactful story you can click here.

To watch and read my January report on my first story I ever covered you can click here.

Do you see something needing a correction? Email us!

Copyright 2022 WITN. All rights reserved.