Longtime Mississippi Coast broadcaster announces she will leave journalism for new role

Longtime Mississippi Coast broadcaster Meggan Gray announced Thursday that she will leave WXXV-TV for a new role at St. Patrick High School.

“It has been an absolute honor and privilege,” Gray said about working in television in Mississippi.

She will leave the station on July 7, Gray said in a video posted to the WXXV-TV Facebook page.

Gray will serve as Director of Advancement at St. Patrick High. She is a 1999 graduate of St. John Catholic High School in Gulfport, which later became St. Patrick High. In the role, she will oversee alumni and fundraising, according to a release from the high school.

Gray, who was born and raised in South Mississippi, has spent 20 years in broadcast journalism and started at WLOX-TV in Biloxi.

At WXXV-TV, Gray appeared as a co-anchor weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and also anchored the noon newscast. Before that, she co-anchored WLOX-TV’s “Good Morning Mississippi” from 2007 to 2021.

She moved to WXXV-TV after a dispute with WLOX-TV, where she had worked since 2003, because she refused to comply with the station’s policy that employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Gray had said she rejected the shot because she had already survived COVID-19, and because of “other powerful reasons” that she did not specify.

WLOX-TV’s parent company, like many others across the country, required employees to be vaccinated to protect communities from deadly surges of the virus.

As supportive comments poured in for the longtime anchor, Gray announced in October 2021 she would join WXXV-TV, a WLOX-TV competitor.

And on Thursday, she announced she will switch roles again.

“It’s going to be a difficult transition,” Gray said. “I’ve been doing this for so long and I’ve loved it.”

Gray grew up in Gulfport and attended Auburn University. Her family has owned and operated a business in Gulfport for decades and her husband works in Ocean Springs, according to an old WLOX profile.

Support rolled in on Facebook on Thursday for the anchor. Some viewers said they followed Gray on her switch to WXXV-TV, and others said they were sorry to see her go and wished her well on her next step.

Working in TV news, Gray said, has been “a true blessing.”

This story was originally published June 29, 2023 at 2:26 PM.