CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Next week, for the first time in nearly 18 years, Sherry Taylor’s voice won’t be carried over the Z95.1 airwaves.

Taylor, the popular and long-running morning host, announced on social media her plans to step away from the radio business as she eyes what’s next in her life. Her final show is Friday.

“You know how they always say a lady knows when to leave,” Taylor told Cville Right Now, which, like Z95.1, is owned by the Charlottesville Media Group. “I don’t know who says that. I’ve heard it somewhere.

“I’ve just have gotten to the point where I think, ‘You know what, I’ve had a good run at it.’ I’ve enjoyed it. I feel tremendously blessed to be in this industry and to meet other people who are just as weird and wacky as I am and to be able to express myself and be who I am and be goofy and be silly, but also be serious at times.

“But you get to a point where you go, ‘Okay, I’ve done it.’ It’s time to just kind of step back and I’m just looking for a new adventure.”

Taylor has been a fixture at the station since joining in 2008, and co-workers said she leaves a legacy of both hard work and fun.

“Sherry has been a true legend in this community and a huge part of what we do every day,” CMG Operations Manager Paul McDaniel told Cville Right Now. “We’re definitely going to miss her around here, but we respect her decision and wish her nothing but the best. Around here, we don’t call her ‘The Queen’ for nothing – she’s earned that title.”

Taylor said she is looking forward to spending her free time with her family, especially her grandchildren. Taylor said she still loves music, radio and the spoken word.

“But I also love my family, I love being outdoors, I love taking walks, I love it here at this time of year,” Taylor, a West Virginia native who lives in Fluvanna County, said. “I love to read, I love to help people; I really, really love to help people, I love to be a part of something that’s really going somewhere with everybody collectively kind of getting in on it.”

She loves a lot of things, but as far as what she might do for a next career, “I am just blocked.”

“I know that it’s time for me to step away, but I also feel I need to step away, take a little time off, and like clear my head, and then kind of pursue, okay, this is what we’re going to do next,” she said.

Taylor said she’s been doing radio since she was 19, outside of a brief hiatus in 2020 when she pressed pause on her career.

She has made many friends in the community both by living here a long time, and by being the friendly cheerful more voice on Z.

One of her favorite memories is the radio she did with the late former NewsRadio WINA News Director Rob Graham. That’s something she said she misses, which contributed to this decision.

“Him being a part of the show for such a long time, and then even after he retired… and he still came back and did the show with me once a week, and that made me feel so special,” Taylor said. “It was such a special time that we had together and he was so beloved, and to have that time, and now not to have that time, it’s a huge hole.”

Another of her favorite memories is the artists she’s had the opportunity to interview.

‘”My gosh, interviewing Melissa Etheridge was one of my favorite interviews, and one of my bucket list interviews,” she said. “And then interviewing Nellie Oleson from Little House on the Prairie. Her name was Alison Arngrim, she played Nellie Oleson, she is one of the nicest people in real life you’ll ever meet.”

In the TV series, Oleson played a manipulative and bratty antagonist to main character Laura Ingalls.

Early on, Taylor sought to bring the perspective of a mother to the station’s morning listeners.

“I had little kids when I started here and, in particular on Z95, and you work on trying to find your voice, you work on what you want people to get out of this experience that they’re going to have with me, and I think just being a mom and talking about things that I thought were hilarious at home… and you get to the point where, I want to be as authentic as I can and I want to be kind to people because I don’t want to put anything out there that I don’t want to get back,” Taylor said.

The tone fits perfectly into Z95’s phrase, “Z95 picks you up”, and Taylor has been very loyal to that mission with her shows, with a goal of “Trying to be a light, trying to create more light instead of more darkness, and being mom and working all that together.”

Taylor said she doesn’t plan to leave the area. She’s just taking a break and will decide on plans for her future… in the future.