Cheryl Preheim, a familiar face on KUSA-Channel 9 for the last 18 years, announced her resignation from the Denver NBC affiliate at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
“I wasn’t ever looking to leave 9News,” Preheim told The Denver Post. “This has been an incredible place with incredible people, and I have shed a lot of tears today — including on the air this morning. But this really is a family move.”
Preheim, whose last day in Denver is Dec. 16, will join sister-station WXIA in Atlanta as a morning news anchor starting in January.
KUSA and WXIA are both owned by TEGNA Media.
Preheim said the move was driven by a business opportunity for her husband but declined to give further details. She said it just happened to work out for her and her family, following some personnel changes at WXIA in Atlanta.
“It’s a great opportunity for me in much bigger market in the same company,” Preheim, 43, said.
Denver is the country’s 17th largest TV market, while Atlanta is the 10th, according to data from the Nielsen Co., which bases its market rankings on population.
Preheim started working for 9News in 1998, where she pulled double duty at KOA’s morning radio show until KUSA hired her full-time in 2000. During her time at the station she has reported and anchored various newscasts, most recently the 9News morning shows. Preheim has also traveled internationally, including to multiple Olympic games where she met and bonded with reporters from NBC’s Atlanta affiliate.
“TEGNA does a great job of connecting all its stations and I’ve become wonderful friends with the teams from Atlanta and watched their great work,” she said.
A Goshen, Ind., native who moved to Colorado to attend the University of Colorado, Preheim graduated from CU with a degree in English and communications in 1995 and worked in various public and private radio and TV stations before joining 9News. She has covered everything from the Columbine High School shootings — “Nothing prepares you for meeting those families while they’re searching for their kids,” she said — to profiles of presidents and Nobel Peace Prize recipients. She also won regional and national Edward R. Murrow Awards, Emmy Awards and Colorado Broadcasters Association Awards.
Known to co-workers as a positive presence around the newsroom, Preheim opened up about her personal life, including her son’s 2015 open-heart surgery, in segments like “Brave Conquers Fear.”
“We have been so fortunate to work with Cheryl over the past 18 years. While it will be hard for us to watch her go, everyone at 9News is excited for Cheryl and this tremendous opportunity in Atlanta,” 9News president and general manager Steve Carter said. “She’ll always be family to us.”
“When I started here I loved to write but I needed to learn TV, and the people here taught me so much, from photographers to producers,” Preheim said. “There were a lot of times where I thought ‘Thank goodness they’re being patient with me.’ It will be really hard to leave a place that has been home and a newsroom that has been family, but it’s equally as exciting to go to a place where I already know so many people.”
