Longtime WAFB-TV anchor Donna Britt, one of Baton Rouge’s most beloved local celebrities, died this morning after more than a three-year battle with ALS.
She was 62.
A native of Mississippi, Britt came to LSU in the 1970s and got her broadcasting start on local radio before being hired by WAFB, where she worked as a reporter and anchor from 1981 until her retirement in mid-2018.
“She was one of the kindest and most caring people I’ve ever known,” says WAFB news director Robb Hayes, who first met Britt when he was interning at the station and later became her colleague. “She was so patient and kind and it was a pleasure to be able to return to the station later in my career and work with her directly.”
Britt was known as much for her community activism as she was for her nightly newscasts, and her involvement with organizations like Susan G. Komen Baton Rouge, the Salvation Army, Volunteers in Public Schools and Grandparents Raising Grandchildren endeared her to viewers throughout the Capital Region.
“She was really interested in people more than she was in herself,” says George Sells, Britt’s co-anchor from 1988 to 2012. “I worked with other co-anchors who only cared about their appearance and the way they looked on TV. That wasn’t Donna. She was genuine.”
She was also a consummate professional and talented journalist.
“I had worked in Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Detroit and was a correspondent for ABC News,” Sells says. “But the best co-anchor I ever had was in little old Baton Rouge and that was Donna Britt.”
Mayor Sharon Weston Broome released a statement this morning, offering her condolences to Britt’s loved ones.
“To know Donna was to love her, and thousands of our community members undoubtedly did,” Broome wrote. “Not only was her talent as an anchor a part of the fabric of our community, but her heart for the people of Baton Rouge was evident in her endless service and the generosity of her daily actions.”
After Britt was diagnosed with ALS in fall 2017, she continued to work on the air, sharing her battle with the disease with her viewers and followers. She retired in 2018, after the disease began affecting her ability to speak.
Even after she was confined to a wheelchair and, later, a hospital bed in her home, she continued to do what she could for others in the community and would welcome visitors and friends.
She is survived by her husband, Mark Ballard; son, Louis Ballard; daughter and son-in-law, Anne and Alec Yonika; and a granddaughter, who was born last fall.
