WWJ reporter Vickie Thomas announces retirement

Award-winning longtime WWJ-AM (950)M reporter Vickie Thomas is retiring this month, she announced Friday on Twitter.

"It's been an amazing ride working with the outstanding professionals at WWJ ... the BEST news team around!" the broadcaster tweeted. "I've truly been blessed!!"

Thomas, the city beat reporter at WWJ, said her last day on air is April 29 but she plans to continue a weekly podcast, "Black Business Minute."

The Metro Detroit native joined the station in 1991.

During her career she earned honors from groups including the Detroit Press Foundation, the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, the Michigan Associated Press and the National Association of Black Journalists, according to the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame, into which she was inducted in 2019.

Thomas is a past president of the National Association of Black Journalists' Detroit chapter, where as vice president she started a scholarship and internship program for college students interested in broadcast news, according to the group. 

She also served on the NABJ national board and was instrumental in helping the group bring its annual convention and career fair to Detroit in 2018 for the first time since 1992, the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame reported.

In 2020, Thomas received a lifetime achievement award from the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Thomas graduated from Henry Ford High School in Detroit, attended Michigan State University and graduated from Wayne State University cum laude with an honors degree in broadcast journalism, according to her NABJ biography.

Thomas was an intern in the office of U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes of Ohio, where she helped get commemorative legislation passed honoring Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, the association said.

Outside of her broadcast work, Thomas has served on the boards of the Midwest Aids Prevention Project and CASA Maria Family Services, according to her biography.