Tom Lewis is the News Director and Co-Anchor of the evening newscasts. He is an award-winning television news journalist who has spent his entire career in the Panama City market. Tom’s interest in journalism began early, working on the Mowat Junior High Schools student newspaper, the yearbook at Bay High School and serving as the editor of the “Gull’s Cry” newspaper while attending Gulf Coast Community College. His first paid job as a journalist was writing sports part-time for the News Herald.
Tom graduated from Florida State University’s Tallahassee campus in December 1979 with a degree in Advertising and Public Relations. He returned home to Panama City and on January 20th, 1980, became the Weekend Anchor/Reporter job at WMBB. He transitioned to an Advertising Account Executive at WMBB, before moving to the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market in May 1983, to sell medical products for several Fortune 500 companies.
But Tom never got broadcasting out of his system and returned to Panama City in 1989 for his second tour-of-duty at WMBB. He started at the bottom, working his way up to become the Weeknight Anchor/Executive Producer/Assistant News Director. He anchored the evening newscasts for 7 years before leaving in 2001 to help build a start-up satellite channel for the Panhandle Area Educational Consortium (PAEC) in Chipley. While at The Florida Education Channel Tom won a national Telly Award for a broadcast he wrote, produced, and anchored about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. From 2001 to 2014, Tom worked at the local NBC affiliate as Weeknight Anchor/Executive Producer, then as News Director from 2005 -2010. He left in October 2014 to open his own business, an advertising & marketing firm.
Then, in February 2016, Tom returned to WMBB for what he calls his third and final tour-of-duty. He really considers this a long-overdue homecoming. Besides the Telly award, Tom has won dozens of Florida Associated Press, the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists, and the Society of Professional Journalists, and a regional Murrow Award from the RTDNA for WMBB’s coverage of Hurricane Michael. But he’s most proud of his involvement in dozens of campaigns over the years, helping raise millions of dollars for health, educational and charitable organizations.
Tom was born in Pensacola, Florida. His family moved to Panama City when he was 3 years old, so Panama City is his home. He attended Bay County public schools, graduating from Bay High School, earned an Associate of Arts degree from Gulf Coast Community College and a Bachelor of Science degree from Florida State University’s College of Communications in Tallahassee. Tom is married to Susan. Their daughter, Lauren, lives in Hamilton County, Florida
