Susan Audé (born October 31, 1952) is a retired American television news anchor in Columbia, South Carolina at WIS-TV.
A child of military service parents she entered adulthood from Virginia to Erskine College in South Carolina in 1972 when she was seriously injured in a car accident in 1974.
[1] Living the rest of her life in a wheelchair, she overcame depression and anger at the time and earned degrees and a career in television news broadcast, starting in 1978 until retirement in 2006, as well as working in theatre and public speaking.
Audé was born on Halloween 1952 into a military family living in many locations - she graduated from high school in Germany[2][3][4] and was in Fort Lee, Virginia about the time she went to college.
[5] In 1974, Audé was in a car hit by a truck[2] - two were killed and two others injured - during her junior year, and sustained severe internal injuries.
[2] The conversion brought awareness of her social circle having limited exposure to people of other races, and provided an optimism of the future of humanity and affirmed her sense of ethics for journalists.
Audé entered the television news business inspired by Barbara Walters[2] 12 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 initially as weather announcer and reporter.
[28] Her life and accomplishments have been the subject of stories in Good Housekeeping[29] and Ms. magazines,[30] as well as on CNN and Lifetime[31] cable channels and Sally Jesse Raphael.
[2] She was interviewed on the radio program and podcast series A Baháʼí Perspective[2] as well as contributing to its body of work reviewing authors of books at the library at the Louis Gregory Institute.
[44] The Governor's Commission on Women honored Audé with its 2001 Woman of Achievement Award which is presented for "remarkable accomplishments and commitment to our state".