Morning anchor departs WTTV to spend time with young sons

Anchor and reporter Nicole Pence is leaving television news after 12 years to take care of her three young children full time.

Pence, who has been out on maternity leave from her job at WTTV, made her retirement official this week on her Facebook page.

Nicole Pence

“I know there will be many days I will miss sitting behind the anchor desk delivering the news and reporting in the community, but I’ll cherish being there for my babies when they need me most,” Pence wrote on her Facebook page on Wednesday.

Pence, the niece of Vice President and former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, had a third son in January. That birth followed the birth of twin sons in December 2015. Pence could not be reached for comment.

Pence, a Columbus native who graduated from DePauw University with degrees in communication and Spanish and earned a master’s degree in public affairs from IUPUI, joined Tribune Media’s WXIN-TV Channel 59 and WTTV-TV Channel 4 in June 2014. 

She worked as an anchor and field reporter, scoring a regional Emmy award last year for her series on David Letterman’s retirement as a late-night talk show host.

Pence was most recently an anchor on WTTV’s morning newscast.

Pence previously was an anchor and reporter for WTHR-TV Channel 13. Before joining WTHR, Pence was a morning news anchor for WLEX-TV in Lexington, Kentucky.

Caught in a tough ratings war with four other local stations, WTTV began overhauling its morning news team in late 2016. Frank Mickens replaced Tim Doty as the primary morning anchor. Mickens joined WTTV from the CBS affiliate WFMY-TV in Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Anchorwoman Marianne Lyles and traffic reporter Katie Solove also departed WTTV’s morning newscast recently.

The station this year has begun advertising its morning newscast—featuring Mickens, meteorologist Lindsay Riley and traffic reporter Rachel Bogle—heavily in print and digital mediums.

WTTV could not immediately be reached for comment.