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News anchor Sandra Hughes felt herself tearing up.

She was outside the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, covering the opening on Feb. 1. Fifty years earlier, she had come home from school to learn that four black college students had taken a seat at the Woolworth counter, defying the eatery's whites-only seating policy.

"There was just such a feeling of excitement," she said. "Two or three times I got teary-eyed that day at the opening. But I thought, 'No, I have a job to do here.' So instead of just enjoying myself and letting myself go, I needed to keep strong."

Hughes was too young to have taken part in the 1960 sit-ins. But she became a pioneer herself 12 years later when she took a job at WFMY (Channel 2), cementing her place in broadcast history as one of the state's first female African American reporters.

In her four decades on the job, she has endured bomb threats, ventured to the top of Cinderella's castle and watched as the industry evolved from film reels to streaming video. And soon, she will anchor her last newscast.

"I think it's just time for me to move, give some younger journalists a chance to step up and spend their 38 years here," she said. "And I'm excited about doing some other things with my life. I would like to spend more time with the grandchildren -- they are high priorities in my life. And I also have a couple of books in my soul that I want to put down on paper."

She has not yet announced a retirement date but said she will likely step down sometime this year.

In the newsroom

When people come to visit her at the station, Hughes said, they often ask, "Where's your office?"

"Well, I don't have one," she says.

What the 63-year-old reporter does have is a beige metal desk with wood veneer in the middle of the WFMY newsroom. On it she has two computer screens and a TV set, as well as pictures of her grandchildren.

She typically begins her workday with a 2:30 p.m. meeting at the station where the reporting team goes over the day's stories. After the meeting, she looks over the stories on her computer and makes suggestions. She watches the 5 p.m. newscast at her desk and about 5:45 goes into the bathroom to apply her makeup and put on an earpiece.

The words "Accuracy First" in big gold letters are on display in each corner of the newsroom. The place is filled with the chatter of police scanners, as well as televisions tuned to CNN and each of the other local stations. But the place is much quieter now than when Hughes started.

"We had the AP wires click, click, clicking all the time where we'd get information," she said. "You had people shouting to each other across the room. When computers became a part of our lives, everything got quiet. They didn't make much noise when you typed on them. And if you wanted to talk to someone, you could just message them."

The place also has changed in other significant ways.

"When I started, it seemed like the whole TV station was run by males. I think there were two other female reporters besides me, plus the secretary," she said. "But women have really stepped up and stepped forward. Our general manager now is female."

As an English major at N.C. A&T, she never thought she would end up in front of the camera.

Born in Durham to Charlie and Marie Daye, a postal service mechanic and hotel housekeeping supervisor, respectively, she grew up in Greensboro and was one of five black students at the defunct Notre Dame High School on Summit Avenue. She was 13 when the Woolworth sit-ins happened.

"It was a very interesting set of emotions," she said. "I remember how my parents and people their age and older felt. They were saying, 'Why are you doing this? Everything is OK. Things are kind of quiet. Why in the world are you stirring a pot that doesn't need to be stirred?' And then there were people who felt, 'Well, OK. I don't think this (segregation) is right.' And they (the Greensboro Four) gave us permission to do something about it. And my sister and I were determined to be part of the marches that took place later downtown."

At A&T, she met Larry Hughes and married him her sophomore year. She graduated in 1969 with the intention of becoming a teacher, but when she couldn't find a teaching job, she went to Western Electric in Winston-Salem and worked as a technical publications editor.

After her daughter Tiffany was born in 1972, she quit her job but decided to re-enter the workforce a few months later. Western Electric had discontinued her department, and she still couldn't find any teaching jobs within driving distance. One day on her way home, she happened to notice the TV station on Phillips Avenue.

"I remember a classmate of mine, Fred Davis, who was the first African American reporter there, had said to me several times, 'Why don't you come apply at the station?' " Hughes said. "And I told him I didn't know anything about that.

"But that day on my way home, I thought, 'Well, I really need a job.' So I stopped in, went to the front desk and said I wanted to apply. She (the receptionist) said, 'What are you looking for?' And I said, 'What do you have?' "

Bomb scares

During her interview, Hughes said she wanted to be a writer. The news director looked over her application and asked, "Have you ever thought about being a reporter?"

She was hired with the expectation that she would learn on the job. She had to break some habits, though.

"Being an English major, I would write long, flowery sentences," she said. "The hard part for me was learning to write for news in quick sentences; not writing sentences that were so long that by the time you got to the end, you couldn't remember what you said to begin with."

But being in front of the camera wasn't very difficult.

"At A&T, I also had a concentration on speech and drama," she said. "So I'd spent a lot of time on stage, a lot of time doing speeches and presentations. That part wasn't tough."

Not everyone welcomed her presence.

"I would go to places to do reports, go into an establishment, and people would say, 'We don't want to deal with you, we'd rather deal with one of the other reporters,' " she said. "There was one occasion when someone called -- I didn't take the call myself -- but they called the assignment desk and wanted some activity covered but to make sure that we didn't send that 'lady of color' there."

Nasty phone calls turned into nasty letters. Bomb threats became a regular occurrence in 1974, when she got her own talk show, "Sandra and Friends." She was the first African American in the state to host a daily talk show.

"It frankly irritated the dickens out of us," said retired WFMY anchor Lee Kinard, who spent nearly 30 years working with Hughes. "But we had to respect it. You couldn't take a chance of it just being a prank. So you had to come in and then have your day disrupted by some idiots."

But Hughes decided she "would not be chased away," and would remain in the studio with a single director working the camera and control panel as everyone else evacuated.

"The only thing that almost broke me was when we got calls threatening my child," she said. "I just couldn't trust whether that was true or not true. But my husband and my family would sort of gather around me and say, 'We're going to do everything we can to watch her while you're not here. So just keep doing what you're doing.'

"And eventually the threats stopped. I guess people saw that I was being too stubborn and thought, 'Oh well, whatever. We'll just leave her alone.' "

Like working with your idol

"Sandra and Friends" ran until 1978, and she briefly hosted a variety program before moving on to host "PM Magazine." During the latter stint, she got to do some travel pieces, venturing across the United States and Europe, and once got to ride aboard a nuclear submarine.

Hughes became the station's community affairs manager in 1985 and, in 1990, took over anchor duties for the evening newscasts.

After announcing her retirement last year, she cut back on her duties and now hosts just the 6 p.m. news, with Frank Mickens anchoring at 5 and 11 p.m.

Her newscast wraps up at 6:30, and she said she's usually home by about 7 p.m.

"My part-time schedule now is very pleasant," she said. "It's nice not to drive down the dark, lonely streets at midnight and getting home when everyone's asleep. When I get home now, I can make some phone calls to people who are still alive and awake."

Recently, she was the recipient of the Silver Circle Award given by the Nashville Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to those who have worked at least 25 years in the broadcast business and have made "a meaningful and significant contribution to broadcasting."

Having spent nearly 40 years with the same company makes Hughes something of a rare breed in an industry where reporters typically spend a few years at one station before moving on to another market.

"She'll be missed," said Linda Florence Callahan, a professor of journalism and mass communications at A&T. "I think there will be a void because right now there isn't anyone who has that long-term reputation. She has that reputation and familiarity that people have enjoyed and appreciated for decades."

Among the multigenerational fan base she has built through the years are several reporters at WFMY, including Tracey McCain.

"She was really big in my family," McCain said. "I remember seeing her on TV and saying that, someday, I wanted to be like her. Working with her, it's like working with your idol."

Deborah Hooper, general manager at the station, described Hughes as a coach to the younger people in the newsroom.

"If you're somebody new coming in, don't have that many years of experience -- well, first of all, you've probably heard about Sandra Hughes because she's been in the television news business for so long," Hooper said.

"And she commands a lot of respect from the people who come to work here, and they want to learn from her. They want to learn the secrets to her success. She's done so many things right, and she serves as that model of success that they want to be like."

Chief meteorologist Eric Chilton recalled receiving an especially warm greeting from Hughes on his first day of work in 2003.

"I had never met her, but I had grown up watching her," he said. "So they were introducing me to everybody, and when we got to Sandra, she said, 'I don't know you, but I'm going to hug you.' So she's kind of a mom to everyone in the newsroom."

Outside the newsroom, Hughes is a voracious reader (she likes mysteries) and photography buff. She also volunteers at her granddaughter Noel's school and teaches a mass communication course at A&T with News & Record editorial page editor Allen Johnson.

She said she wants to write a book about her time in the business, as well as do some motivational speaking.

But leaving is hard to do.

"Thirty-eight years -- that's the bulk of my adult life," Hughes said. "And it's going to be extremely difficult to walk away and act like it's all just fine. It's in my blood. It's what I do. When I don't do that anymore, what am I going to do? I have to find another path to start traveling because I know I can't sit still and do nothing."

Like the newspaper industry, the television business has changed a great deal in how it puts forth its content, and she said she looks forward to seeing what the current generation of reporters will come up with.

"They're lively, they're spirited, they're smart," Hughes said. "They know all about the stuff that I myself am just learning about with the Internet and streaming video. They walk into this building with that knowledge under their belts already. And I'm just thrilled at seeing what they're going to do."

And occasionally, she pauses, appreciating the change that has already taken place.

"I understand that we still live in a world where a lot of people don't like a lot of other people," she said. "But it's not as blatant as it was 38 years ago when people could stand in your face and say, 'I don't like you because of the color of your skin.'

"I sit in our newsroom meetings and look at the women around the table or look at all the African Americans who've taken roles on TV.

"It's been wonderful."

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com