Former longtime Columbia news anchor dies after contracting COVID-19
Ed Carter was going to explore the nation, coast to coast, on his motorcycle.
After more than 20 years behind the anchor desk at Columbia’s WIS-TV news station, Carter was retiring in November of 1998. Though he was a relatively private person and never much of a partier himself, there was a big party thrown in his honor. The station’s gift to him: An expensive Kevlar motorcycle suit, from head-to-toe, to send him off on his new adventure.
“That was sort of his ticket out the door and a show of appreciation for how much he was held in esteem by the management there,” said Jack Kuenzie, a close friend and longtime colleague of Carter.
Carter, in fact, was held in high esteem by many who knew him and who welcomed him into their homes through their TV sets each night.
Well-known and loved as a local news anchor through the 1980s and ‘90s, Carter died Tuesday morning. He was 81. Plans have not been made for a funeral, Kuenzie said.
Friends of Carter say he had been in declining health for several years and that he became infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the highly contagious coronavirus, in the past month.
He’s remembered as a gentleman, a role model and the portrait of a professional newsman.
“He was one of the leading people in television,” said Joe Daggett, who worked as a sports anchor alongside Carter from the early-’80s to the mid-’90s.
Carter and co-anchor Susan Audé were fixtures as Columbia’s leading news team at a time when WIS dominated the local TV market and was one of the leading NBC affiliates in the country, Kuenzie remembered.
Kuenzie, who became a respected local investigative reporter, joined the WIS news crew in 1984 — and Carter was one of the main reasons, he said.
“Ed not only was the consummate professional on air, but when I met him in person, he was this genuinely nice person, down-to-earth and friendly,” Kuenzie said. “That was one of the reasons that convinced me that this was a top-notch operation. ...
“I looked at Ed Carter and said, ‘I want to work where that guy works.’”
Carter’s career also took him to Johnson City, Tenn., and Charleston. In Columbia, he covered some of South Carolina’s biggest news events, from Hurricane Hugo to Pope John Paul II’s visit to Columbia.
“He was very dedicated to what he did. He was very serious about that,” said Joe Pinner, another longtime local media fixture who teamed up with Carter in front of the WIS cameras for the better part of Carter’s career. “He was a whimsical individual and had a neat sense of humor. Even though the news was serious, during commercial breaks, we would sometimes have a laugh or two.”
Carter, Audé, Daggett and Pinner together were the station’s A-list news team for more than a decade, a rarity for a news crew to work together for so long.
Years after Carter’s retirement from WIS in 1998, he, Pinner and several other former local newsmen would meet for monthly breakfasts at a local Shoney’s restaurant, Pinner said. They called themselves “the SLOBs”: Super Legendary Older Broadcasters.
Kuenzie stayed in contact with his former colleague in later years, visiting Carter every few weeks at the assisted living home in northeast Columbia where he lived toward the end of his life.
A mysterious illness had stripped Carter’s ability to speak for quite a few years, his friends said. That was “frustrating for a guy who was a communicator par excellence” — better than all the rest, Kuenzie said. “He was smooth on the air, a broadcast voice. But it wasn’t a fake broadcast voice. It was his genuine voice.”
But Carter’s mind stayed sharp, and he communicated through an electronic keyboard.
He enjoyed writing and painting after his news career ended, friends said. And he did ride across the country on his beloved motorcycle.
Kuenzie said he and Carter often discussed politics during their visits. At one of their last meetings, not long before visitations were banned at nursing homes across South Carolina due to the spreading coronavirus, Kuenzie said Carter told him he hoped he’d live to vote in this fall’s election.
“It was as if he understood that his health was starting to become something more than he could manage,” Kuenzie said.
People close to Carter were unable to visit him in his final days.
“I was worried he would think people had abandoned him,” Kuenzie said.
But Carter was far from forgotten.
As word of his death spread Tuesday, so did words of sadness and respect for the beloved newsman.
“Mr. Carter was indeed a respected & reliable local voice,” Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin said in a tweet.
“His incredible intelligence, calming presence, quick wit & charming smile are dearly missed ... a legend on & off the air.” current WIS anchor Judi Gatson also said in a tweet.
“He was always the consummate professional, telling viewers every night what they needed to know about their community and their state, and doing it with such grace and class,” former S.C. Gov. David Beasley wrote in a Facebook comment. “Ed did his job well not just because he knew the issues but because he knew and cared about the people who were tuning in every night to WIS.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 5:13 PM.
