WTSP's Sue Zelenko plans to marry sometime this summer. Her contract expires next month.
By ERIC DEGGANS
Published March 30, 2004
For 13 years, she's been one of the leading faces at WTSP-Ch. 10, a constant at a TV station that sometimes found itself buffeted by change.
But now WTSP-Ch. 10 anchor Sue Zelenko has decided it's time for a change of her own, announcing Monday that she will leave the CBS affiliate on April 23 to focus on her family and upcoming marriage to retired businessman Ron Salhany.
"My children are in complete support of it," Zelenko, 46, told the audience during Monday's 6 p.m. newscast; the anchor has three children age 16 or older.
"They're ready to have their mom home," she said. "It's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity."
Reached at her home Monday night, Zelenko stressed that the departure was her decision - helped by support she's gotten from Salhany, 54, a former owner of Lexus of Tampa Bay and Lexus of Clearwater.
The pair will marry sometime this summer.
"I've been a single parent for 15 years. ... It's an opportunity for me to be a full-time mom, be a wife and enjoy my family," said the anchor, whose contract would have ended in August.
"I am not being forced out," she said. "No one invited me to leave. It hurts to walk away from something I've done so long. ... (But) at the same time, I'm ready to try something new."
WTSP staffers learned the news hours before the broadcast Monday, though news director and vice president Lane Michaelsen said he first heard of Zelenko's decision about two weeks ago. Michaelsen has not decided on a possible replacement.
"I guess I was a little surprised ... (but) right now, her focus is going to be on her new husband and family," added Michaelsen, who said the timing of Zelenko's departure, coming two days before the start of May's "sweeps" ratings period, would not cause additional problems.
"Everything happens at different times, and you just have to go with it," he said.
Reginald Roundtree, Zelenko's longtime partner on the anchor desk, admitted feeling emotional at the thought of her departure.
"People just would not understand how deeply we were connected as friends ... like a brother and a sister," said Roundtree, who joined Zelenko to form the station's top anchor team in 1998. "But I'm happy for her. After 28 years of hard work (in journalism) and raising a family ... she deserves this."
Zelenko came to the market in 1991, after an 11-year stint at WJRT in Flint, Mich., the city where she was born and raised.
Her broadcast journalism career started in 1975 with an all-purpose job as reporter, anchor and weather forecaster for WLUC television in Marquette, Mich. - a position she held while studying at Northern Michigan University.
Ask how the market has changed in 13 years, and Zelenko will note that she, WFLA-Ch. 8's Gayle Sierens and WTVT-Ch. 13's Kelly Ring are still anchoring shows, just as they were in 1991. But other things have changed, prompting her latest move.
"I think any working parent is torn between spending time with your children and getting the job done," added Zelenko, who said she might consider commercials or other non-news TV work in the future. "Now I've been given the opportunity to take it easy and put my family first."
