Former Fox 5 reporter Beth Parker, a familiar face on local D.C. news for nearly two decades, died Monday morning after a battle with cancer. She was 51.
Parker spent 17 years as a reporter and storyteller at Fox 5, during which she worked alongside Paul Wagner, a former WTOP reporter who worked for Fox 5.
HEARTBREAKING: Former FOX 5 reporter Beth Parker, who came into your homes for almost two decades while covering stories across the D.C. region, has died. Beth passed away Monday morning after battling cancer. She was 51. https://t.co/gvbhtY4a3a pic.twitter.com/7DblIXc6v9
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) March 23, 2021
Wagner recalls Parker had a big heart, and he won’t forget what she did for him and his wife when they took a trip to Bermuda.
“Before you know it, we were upstairs on the top floor of the hotel and given the keys to this incredible suite overlooking the harbor in Hamilton, Bermuda, and the breeze was beautiful,” Wagner said.
“I knew immediately that Beth had done that, she had pulled that off — she’d told her friend that we were coming to Bermuda.”
After leaving Fox 5 in 2015, Parker relocated to San Francisco and served as chief communications officer for LeanIn.org, a nonprofit founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to help women “pursue their dreams without bias or other barriers holding them back.”
WTOP’s Alejandro Alvarez contributed to this report.
