Former news anchor from Corydon dies

Melissa Forsythe, a Corydon Central graduate who went on to become a staple in the Louisville television market for many years, died earlier this month. TV outlets where Forsythe had been employed reported she died at her Louisville home of natural causes just days before her 72nd birthday.

In a tribute to his former co-worker at WHAS, Doug Profitt said in a news segment that Forsythe was a “tough but fair” journalist for 20-plus years.

Becky Heishman, a 1968 classmate of Forsythe’s at Corydon Central, recalled in a Facebook post that Forsythe was “brilliant, beautiful” and the “most focused person I’ve ever known.”

During junior high school, “Forsythe told classmates that she would go to college, earn a major in communications and a minor in French and she would become a TV anchor,” Heishman said. “And that’s exactly what she did.”

After graduating from Corydon Central, Forsythe earned a degree from Indiana University. She began her broadcast career in Louisville with WAVE-3 in 1972 and would become the station’s first female anchor.

In 1979, Forsythe switched stations, joining the WHAS team, anchoring the news until 1991 when she left to help Paul Patton with his campaign for governor. After Patton was elected, she joined his administration, working for five years in the press secretary office.

Profitt said some of the bigger news stories Forsythe covered were the Standard Gravure shooting in 1989 and the Carrollton, Ky., bus crash in 1988.

“Her precise, concise writing made us all better journalists,” Profitt said. “In her wake, she set a high bar, and it is so appreciated.”

According to family, a private service was to take place.