Mix FM breakfast announcer Caroline Hutchinson has called it quits after 26 years as the voice thousands of Sunshine Coast residents wake up to.
Caroline announced her resignation on air this morning, taking her loyal following of listeners by surprise.
With her breakfast co-host Mark Darin smiling, she began her announcement with what has become one of her trademark phrases.
“Is it just me, or did everyone think this day would never come?” she said.
“Yesterday, after we said goodbye for the day, before we left the studio, I said to Mark, ‘I need to tell you something. I resigned’.
“I think I surprised him. I think I surprised myself when I said to my husband, John, a month ago, ‘This is my last year at the mighty Mix FM’.
“It was a sad decision because I love everyone in this building so much. I know it sounds really full-on when we go on about each other but we are just a family, we take care of each other in this place, and I know, we all know, how lucky we are to work here.”
Caroline rated the job she started in 1998 as still “the best job going in the whole radio world” but she said it was time to move on.
“It hurts to say it and I know it’s going to feel incredibly weird not being ‘Caroline from the radio’ any more but it’s just time,” she said.
“I’m 56 and if I’m going to have a second life, then I need to get busy and just do it.
“Now, I don’t know what that life is going to be.
“Doing things I love, like problem solving for businesses, strategic planning relationships – those are my strengths so I’m going to be doing that. I just haven’t worked out how yet.”
Caroline told Sunshine Coast News she had been considering her resignation for a month and “it does feel right”.
She said she was looking forward to a change of lifestyle.
“I’ve done this for so long. I want a different kind of life. I want to find out what it’s like to be normal. I just want to get up and walk the dogs and have a swim, and go to work like everybody else,” she said.
She acknowledged that finding a new identity after her career as a breakfast radio announcer could be difficult.
“I might be kidding myself. I might feel quite down when I’m not ‘Caroline from the radio’ anymore but I think I’ll like being ‘Caroline from Coles’. I don’t think I’m going to know that until I’m outside of radio.”
Caroline said her husband, John, was more worried than she was about her finding her next path in life.
“I think John has mixed feelings about the fact that I’ll be around in the mornings,” she said.
“In the 35 years we’ve been married, I’ve always done breakfasts. He’s never had me in the mornings.
“I said, ‘We’ll be able to have coffee in the morning’, and he said, ‘Maybe not every morning’.”
Caroline started at Mix FM when her children, Gabe, Milli and Jemima, were aged 6, 3 and 1. They are now all adults and she has two grandchildren.
During her time at Mix FM she became well entrenched in the community and has strong links to campaigns such as Give Me 5 For Kids, which supports children’s medical services on the Sunshine Coast.
“I think that’s just because I come from a little country town. I think that’s the only way I know how to be. Community means everything to me,” she said.
Caroline will finish up just before Christmas, bringing to an end one of the longest-running breakfast radio partnerships in the world.
She and breakfast co-host Mark have worked together for 20 years.
“We believe there’s a radio station in New York that has a duo that’s been doing it maybe a bit longer,” she said.
She told listeners that she would be on air until Christmas and there would be time for “a thousand goodbyes” between now and then.
“Just know that if I do cry between now and Christmas, it’s not because I’m sad. It’s because I’m grateful for everything that I’ve been given my Mix FM and by you, too, but here’s to new beginnings,” she said.
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