Hey Solarte...HELP WANTED

Channel 36 sports director Chuck Howard has parted ways with the station in the wake of a technical goof that allowed a vulgarity on the air last week.

Howard, 41, WCNC sports director for 11 years, was taping a roundup Wednesday night for the next morning's "6 News Today" when he decided to redo the segment. "Let's retake that," he said, prefacing the statement with the word shit.

But when the roundup aired at 5:51 a.m. Thursday, the station showed the aborted segment rather than the one intended for broadcast. Morning anchor Colleen Odegaard immediately acknowledged the error and apologized to viewers. Howard was not on his usual newscasts Friday.

"Chuck has tendered his resignation and we have accepted it," Stuart Powell, president and general manager of the NBC affiliate, said Saturday.

He said he could not comment on the reasons for the resignation.

A message left at Howard's home was not immediately returned.

Howard, who worked on the station's evening and 11 p.m. broadcasts, joined WCNC in 1995 from a station in Buffalo, N.Y. In 2003, he was named North Carolina's best sportscaster by the Electronic News Association of the Carolinas.