Kelley Mitchell’s sudden death Sunday sparked an outpouring of messages, memories and shared grief in postings on Facebook and attached to obituaries that ran after her husband, WSVN chief photographer Kirk Wade, spoke of losing the woman he called his “soul mate” and “best friend.”
A public memorial service for Mitchell will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Miami Shores Theater, 9806 NE Second Ave. Free parking is available on 98th Street and limited street parking at meters. Instead of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the American Cancer Society.
Mitchell, 58, was a news anchor for WSVN-Channel 7, paired with Rick Sanchez, in the early 1990s, and seven years later, in 1998, the distinctive reporter moved to WPLG-Channel 10. “She had this sarcastic streak but was a consummate broadcast journalist in the old-world sense,” Sanchez said Tuesday.
In 2002, while at Channel 10, Mitchell broke the news that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She shared her story with viewers. More recently, Mitchell broadcast on WIOD-610 AM and, from 2011 to early 2015, she did afternoon newscasts for WLRN-91.3 FM. She also reported on Latin American news for Nuestra Tele Noticias 24 Horas-NTN24.
On Thursday, Wade said that his wife, who had suffered many illnesses over the years, including a collapsed lung in 2014, died of natural causes.
This story appeared in the Miami Herald. Follow @HowardCohen on Twitter.
