Wendy Rieger, a longtime fixture of local television news, died Saturday at a hospice care facility in Montgomery County. She was 65. The cause of her death was glioblastoma, and follows a procedure last year to remove a cancerous tumor from her brain.

Rieger was a mainstay of regional journalism, having anchored the 5 p.m. newscast on NBC4 for more than two decades. She retired from the job in Dec. 2021 after 33 years in journalism. While a freshman at American University in the 1970s, Rieger also worked at WAMU, then largely a college radio station with some programming from the fledgling NPR.

“For all these years, Wendy was Wendy: smart, funny, compassionate and authentically herself,” wrote fellow news anchor and longtime NBC4 anchor Doreen Gentzler over the weekend. “She shared a lot of her life with us over the years talking about her homes, her cats, her boat, her love of wine and her love of the area from the waters of Maryland to the mountains of Virginia. And, of course, the culture of Washington.”

“Today a bright light went out at NBC4,” wrote Rieger’s longtime co-host, Jim Handly, on Facebook.

Remembrances of Rieger also poured in from local elected officials.

“I’m heartbroken over the passing of one of D.C.’s most beloved anchors, Wendy Rieger,” tweeted D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. “Wendy delivered the news honestly — with humor, heart, & expertise and she will be missed dearly.”

“Wendy was one-of-a-kind and will be dearly missed,” tweeted Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.

“Wendy has been a local legend in our region for more than 30 years,” said Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. “She will be extremely missed by all who had the opportunity to know her, and the countless others who relied on her expert coverage for many years.”

Rieger was born in 1956 in Norfolk, Virginia, where she also got her professional start in journalism. She eventually got into TV news with a stint as a weekend reporter for CNN, and in 1988 joined NBC4 as a reporter. She became a news anchor in 1996, often reporting and delivering the news with a flair that personalized both her and the people and events she was covering.

That was particularly evident when Rieger covered the region’s weather. In 2012, we marveled at how she handled Hurricane Sandy from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where she compared covering the storm to her dating life and insisted that the key to surviving a rain-drenched outdoor broadcast is waterproof mascara.

She also spoke openly about the 2020 open-heart surgery that likely saved her life at the time. “We take the fact that we are alive for granted. We are miraculous. Astonishing. After heart surgery, I have a whole new appreciation of that,” she said.

Rieger death’s closely follows the recent passing of another legendary TV anchor, WUSA9’s Bruce Johnson.

Rieger is survived by her husband, retired NBC4 photographer Dan Buckley, and three brothers.