JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In case you haven’t heard, longtime News4JAX lead anchor Tom Wills is retiring. He’ll sign off for the last time on Friday after 49 years behind the Channel 4 anchor desk.
MORE: Stories celebrating Tom’s 49 years at WJXT
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Nearly five decades is a long time to cover news in one city, so we wanted to know which stories Tom found the most memorable in his WJXT tenure.
We asked for a “Top 10″ from Tom, but he snuck in an 11th story. And since he’s Tom, we’re letting it slide, of course. We figure he’s earned it.
The COVID-19 pandemic
The first cases of the coronavirus reported in Florida showed up in March 2020. As cases ballooned and death tolls grew, the state masked up and briefly shut down -- before the debate began to rage over how best to handle the pandemic.
In the meantime, to keep our anchors safe and healthy, Tom co-anchored the news with Mary Baer from home.
Tom used a card table in his family room as a makeshift anchor desk.
No matter what, the news still had to be reported.
Local reaction to the 9/11 terror attacks
On Sept. 11, 2001, four commercial airplanes were hijacked and nearly 3,000 people were killed in attacks in New York City, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania.
Shock reverberated across the country, including here in Jacksonville, where Tom and his fellow anchors had to calmly share updates and keep viewers informed.
Shuttle disasters
With Kennedy Space Center just a little over 2 hours south, space news and launches always carry high interest in Jacksonville.
Tom vividly remembers the Space Shuttle Challenger breaking apart 73 seconds after launch in 1986, killing all seven crew members aboard. News4JAX later produced a documentary on the disaster, called “Challenger: A Rush to Launch.”
Then, in 2003, it happened again, this time as Space Shuttle Columbia reentered the atmosphere over Texas.
Tom also reported from Cape Canaveral in 1998 when John Glenn became the oldest person to go into space at age 77. And he covered a nighttime shuttle landing at the Cape.
Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash
In what became perhaps the most personal story of his career, Tom traveled to Gillsburg, Mississippi, with photographer Joe Coppoletta in 1977 to cover the plane crash that killed several members of Jacksonville rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Tom and Joe were the only local news crew to go to the scene of the crash, a sight that Tom will never forget.
“There are no words to describe the impact of standing silently in the woods surrounded by the personal belongings of men and women who died there, men and women who were horribly injured there, and the shattered wreckage of a machine that used to fly,” Tom said.
When he returned home, the station produced a local news special called “Need All My Friends,” which was named for one of the band’s hits.
In the decades since the crash, Tom formed a personal friendship with crash survivor Billy Powell and also good relationships with Johnny Van Zant, Rickie Medlocke and Judy Van Zant.
He returned to Gillsburg 42 years later to cover the dedication of a roadside memorial to the band near the scene of the crash. During the trip, Tom interviewed survivors of the crash who still deal with lingering injuries and also some of the rescuers who still live nearby.
The coverage led to an hour-long documentary, “The Legacy of Lynyrd Skynyrd.”
Birth of the Jaguars
From the phenomenon that was “Colt Fever” in 1979 to the announcement in 1993 that a sleepy city in Northeast Florida had been awarded a coveted NFL franchise, Tom covered it all.
He said the Jaguars’ first season in 1995 was the climax of an effort launched by Jacksonville Mayor Jake Godbold.
Elections of Nat Glover, Alvin Brown
In nearly 50 years of news, you cover a LOT of local elections, but two in particular stood out for Tom.
The election of Nat Glover in 1995 as not only Jacksonville’s first African American sheriff but the first African American sheriff in Florida since Reconstruction.
Then in 2011, Alvin Brown was elected Jacksonville’s first African American mayor. In 2015, Brown declared May 12 “Tom Wills Day” in honor of Tom’s 40th anniversary at Channel 4.
Jacksonville Landing opens
For many of us, the razing of the Jacksonville Landing in 2020 was a defining moment in city history, but for Tom, it was the opening of the Landing in 1987.
At the time, the Landing was the first new attraction downtown in modern times.
Hurricanes Matthew and Irma
In 2016, Tom made a memorably emotional plea for viewers to evacuate in the face of Hurricane Matthew, which had been predicted to bring “catastrophic damage” to the area if it made direct landfall (thankfully, it didn’t).
Then, there was Hurricane Irma in 2017, the 400-mile-wide storm that brought record flooding to Jacksonville.
Tom also has strong memories of the 2004 hurricane season, when the Jacksonville area endured tropical storms Charley, Ivan, Frances, and Jeanne.
Political scandals
Tom has covered his share of local scandals, including some that put political figures in prison, such as state Sen. Dan Scarborough, Democratic party leader Harold Haimowitz, former Congresswoman Corrine Brown, and former JaxPort member Tony Nelson.
Other scandals led to disgrace for officials, including former public defender Matt Shirk, who was disbarred earlier this year.
Better Jacksonville Plan
Duval County voters in 2000 approved a half-cent sales tax for the Better Jacksonville Plan, a package of improvements that included a new arena, downtown library, baseball park and courthouse.
More than a decade earlier, voters approved a half-cent sales tax in 1988 to replace tolls on local bridges and Butler Boulevard, an effort that was championed by Channel 4.
Can you imagine stopping to pay a toll on Jacksonville’s bridges now?
WJXT goes independent
In July 2002, WJXT ended its affiliation with the CBS network and became an independent station, The Local Station.
Despite the change, News4JAX remains the most-watched TV station in the Jacksonville market, and we know Tom has been a big reason for your loyalty.