Liz Quirantes, an anchor for CBS News that has been with the network for 35 years, announced that she is leaving her job. The vast majority of her career was spent reporting out of South Florida. In her announcement, Quirantes said, “It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to the viewers, to the staff, and to my life here. I’m going to miss this.”
Quirantes said she is leaving CBS12 and moving to join her children in Oklahoma. She started working for CBS News in West Palm Beach back in 1991, beginning her career as a temporary weekend reporter. She would go on to spend decades working at her second job out of college. Before her retirement, she anchored the 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., and 11 p.m. newscasts and has received a number of accolades for her work, including two Suncoast Regional Emmy Awards.
One of the awards was for her on-the-ground coverage in the Bahamas after the area was ravaged by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. The other was for reporting on the Parkland school shooting in 2018. Quirantes stated that she hopes the viewers have fond memories of her, saying, “I want them to remember that I was a devoted mom, a devoted wife, a good Christian, and an excellent journalist.”
“I applied here, got the job as a weekend reporter,” Quirantes said, according to a report from CBS12. “And I never intended to stay. Craig (her husband Craig Williams) and I didn’t even sell our home in Miami because we intended to go back to Miami and I would apply to a broadcast station there.” She also established herself as one of the networks go-to reporters, often covering crime scenes, breaking stories, and big local news.
Quirantes, in a display of humor, commented on how her looks changed over the years. “It’s kind of its own entity over the years,” she went on to say of her hair. “I know when I started in this market, I had curly hair. I felt like I looked too young, so I cut it short and made it dark. Sometimes I had bangs, sometimes no bangs, and now it’s long.”
When asked about her reasoning for retirement she said it was all about spending more time with family. “What really solidified my decision was my children started talking about starting their own families,” she went on to say. “That’s kind of like, OK, they’re not coming back to Florida. They’re in Oklahoma, and they’re doing very well, so mom and dad need to go there.”
While Quirantes is well-known for her hurricane report, she was also reporting from Ground Zero during the terrorists attacks that occurred on 9/11. Along with that, she also participated in political debates as a moderator and got to sit down and interview some of the world’s biggest celebrities, elected officials, and other individuals who have made the news over the years.
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Quirantes is known as one of the defining voices of the station, having earned a permanent spot on the anchor desk to cover some of the biggest stories happening in Palm Beach County. The network announced that they would be celebrating her career over the entire month, showcasing some of her best work and saying goodby to their defining voice.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video