'Loved every minute:' Lincoln anchor bids farewell to KLKN viewers after abrupt departure (2024)

Longtime KLKN-TV evening anchor Megan Conway said she was blindsided when she found out her contract with the ABC affiliate would not be renewed.

In a meeting on May 31, Conway said she expected to sign a new contract, but instead management told her they decided to go in a different direction and did not explain further. That was her last day at the station, where she had worked for more than 10 years. She addressed her departure on social media on Tuesday.

Conway said she was told she didn’t get more of a heads-up before being terminated due to scheduling conflicts.

“It has been a very, very stressful and emotional time for me and my family,” Conway told the Journal Star in an interview on Saturday. “I have a young family to take care of and support and being blindsided with that decision and left with no paycheck that we were depending on has been really hard.”

The mother of two — a 4-year-old daughter and 6-month-old son — said she returned from maternity leave in the beginning of March.

“It was a real shock,” she said. “I didn't think after a decade of working at the station that that's how things would be handled.”

KLKN declined a request by the Journal Star to provide further details about its decision to not renew Conway's contract.

She said her contract was discussed in prior meetings, but there were no promises. On a Thursday in April, she was told management would “get something to (her) early the next week.” That meeting wasn’t scheduled until the end of May. She said there were no signs her contract would not be renewed leading up to the meeting.

“I don’t think I'll probably ever fully understand the decision,” she said.

Conway, who had served eight years as the evening anchor alongside Rod Fowler, was the longest-serving woman evening anchor for the station. The second-longest was about four years, she said.

It’s normal for television contracts to run two to three years and for talent to sign contracts near the time their current contract is ending. But Conway said she had not heard of anyone being told they would not be coming back on the last day of their contract.

Conway interned at the station in the summer of 2013 and was hired as morning editor in February 2014 after graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a degree in broadcast journalism.

Following her position as a morning editor, she worked as a reporter, weekend forecaster and morning anchor before being promoted to evening anchor in 2016.

“I really loved my coworkers and everyone was always wonderful to me,” she said. “It was a fun place to work back in the day.”

Citadel Communications owned the broadcast station when Conway was hired. In 2019, Standard Media took over.

Conway said Citadel was smaller and ran more like a mom-and-pop place. Now, it’s more corporate. While she said this doesn’t affect viewers, it did affect employees. She said they didn't have the same relationships with management as they did before.

Conway's abrupt departure meant she didn’t get the chance to thank her viewers or say goodbye on air.

“I would have thanked viewers, thanked the Lincoln community and the state of Nebraska as a whole for trusting me to bring them their news on the good and the bad days for over a decade,” she said.

Conway was honored that people shared their stories with her and trusted her to report fairly.

“Without those viewers, we would have been nothing over the years,” she said. “So it's really them that I owe my career to as well, and I can't thank them enough that I was able to do my dream job in my home state for so many years. And I loved every minute of it.”

Conway said her co-anchor Rod Fowler, who has worked at the station 28 years, was just as shocked as she was. As close friends, she said they cried in the parking lot that day.

"Megan Conway is one of my best friends. We sat side by side on the anchor desk for 8 years," Fowler said in a comment on Facebook, which he gave the Journal Star permission to quote. "We leaned on each other many times to get through this crazy world of news. And while we still stay very close in our personal lives, I will miss her."

Conway said it’s been an emotional time for her, her family and her coworkers. She has been astounded by the number of people who have reached out to her, especially her “Ocho Family."

Management has not communicated with her since the meeting, but she said producers, reporters, directors and people she worked with on a day-to-day basis have been messaging her, offering help and sending flowers.

“I think I've heard from almost everyone in the building at Channel 8 — all of my coworkers,” she said.

In addition to coworkers, she said the community has sent support.

“Channel 8 brought a lot of wonderful people into my life as coworkers, but also throughout the community,” she said.

Conway said her passion for news is unwavering and she has no plans to leave the journalism industry or Nebraska. Within the next few weeks, she hopes to announce her next steps.