Donna Deegan

Donna Deegan is currently a weekday anchor, alongside Phil Amato and Shannon Ogden, on First Coast News at WTLV/WJXX in Jacksonville, Florida. Deegan co-anchors the weeknight 5:30 and 11 p.m. newscasts of First Coast News.^[1]

Donna was raised on the southside of Jacksonville and graduated from Bishop Kenny High School. She holds a BS in Communications from Florida State University.^[1]

Donna started her career in 1984 as the morning anchor for WTXL in Tallahassee. In 1985, she became the West Palm Bureau Chief for WTVX in Fort Pierce. She then became the morning and noon anchor for WPEC in West Palm Beach where she remained until August of 1988. Donna then took the opportunity to move to her native Jacksonville and became the anchor of the weekend broadcasts on WTLV. In 1992, she became anchor of the 5:30 and 11 p.m. newscasts on WTLV.^[1]

She is a member of St. Pauls Catholic Church in Jacksonville Beach. She has two children, Danielle and Drew, and she is married to First Coast News meteorologist Tim Deegan.^[1]

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Breast cancer

Donna is a two-time survivor of breast cancer. In 1999, she began her battle, and it resurfaced in 2002. She is the founder of The Donna Hicken Foundation, which provides the necessary funds to care for local women living with breast cancer.^[1]

2007 cancer

On September 19, 2007, Donna stated that a CT scan showed a small "suspicious" lesion in her lower left lung.^[2] A PET scan confirmed the lesion was there, but nothing more was found anywhere in her body. At first, doctors were not certain if the lesion was cancer or not. However, on September 21, 2007, after surgery to remove the lesion, it was confirmed that it was indeed cancer. Donna is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment to prevent the cancer from returning. She continues her fight with the disease.^[3]

Name Change

After her marriage to Tim Deegan, Donna retained her last name of "Hicken" because of the fact she was on the local newscasts. On October 29, 2007, Donna officially changed her last name on newscasts to Donna Deegan. This also coincided with a complete change of the First Coast News graphics package change.

In a 'Donna's Journal' entry on the First Coast News website dated November 12th, 2007 Mrs. Deegan went on to explain the change:

"Hello Folks,

Donna Deegan here.

For those of you who haven't been watching this past week, where've you been? Seriously, if you haven't had the time to tune in, I have changed my name to, well, my name. So many of you have e-mailed to say "Hey Donna, it's about time!" Well, fortunately the station thought so too. Tim and I have been married for more than five years, and I have been Deegan everywhere but on the air since then. So why now? Well, there is no great strategy here. For some time now the station has been putting together a new look for our news opens, graphics etc. That's a big deal and very expensive so it's not done very often. While making those plans they very graciously asked if I would like to change my on-air name. I talked it over with my kids and with Tim and everyone said "go for it" so I did. That simple. The decision had nothing to do with my recent recurrence. It will be fun to see if I can actually call myself the correct name every day. Between chemo and my normal space cadet nature, I think the betting pool is in full swing.'"

-From Donna's Journal

When Donna first joined WTLV her on-air name was Donna Clewis

26.2 with Donna

On June 22, 2006 the Mayo Clinic and The Donna Hicken Foundation announced the inaugural run of the 26.2 with Donna: The National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer, benefiting Mayo Clinic and women living with breast cancer. The event will be weekend-long, and will be held February 15-17, 2008 in Jacksonville Beach. The event will include a community celebration event, a health expo, VIP event, marathon, half marathon, and fun-run.^[4] U.S. Olympian Jeff Galloway serves as the event coordinator.^[5]

Awards and recognition

During her career, Donna has received many awards including the Jacksonville Business Journal Women of Influence Award in 2004 and the Enterprising Women’s Leadership Award in 2005. Donna is also a published author. Her book, The Good Fight, chronicles her second bout with breast cancer and the on-line journal that she kept during that time.^[6]

On October 25, 2007, Donna was honored by Community Connections of Jacksonville at the Omni Hotel. She is the 2007 recipient of the Florence N. Davis Award for Lifetime Achievement.^[7]

References