Two veteran TV reporters retiring from KMPH in Fresno. Neither wanted to leave

The first person to predict a future in television news for Rich Rodriguez was a principal at Sequoia Union Elementary in Lemon Cove.

Rodriguez was in fifth grade and in trouble for doing the kind of thing kids do at school.

“I went face-to-face with the principal and he sat me down and he said, ‘I think you have a future in broadcasting.’”

He was right.

Save for a brief stint where he staged a congressional run, Rodriguez has been an on-air personality in Fresno for 40 years. He’s worked at three of the big four TV news stations in town, as a reporter and anchor and even had a spot as a radio farm reporter on KMJ.

Rodriguez spend his early days at ABC30 where he hosted the news magazine show known as “Sat 6:30” and was the lead anchor through the late 1990s. In 2001, he was hired by KSEE24 as an evening co-anchor next to Stefani Booroojian. He replaced long-time anchor Bob Long. Rodriguez left that station in 2009 and was quickly hired at KMPH FOX 26, where he serves as weekend anchor and news reporter.

That is, until Sunday when Rodriguez retires from the station after almost 16 years.

“I wanted to keep working,” he told The Bee on Tuesday.

“I love doing what I do.”

But he was also ready to work part-time — a few hours two or three days a week.

He’s not giving up hope that that might happen, but for now there’s plenty of work to be done at home. “We all have a lot of stuff around the house that we say that we’re going to do.”

There’s a tree in the back yard that needs to be dug up and replaced and some drawers that need sorting.

The realization that he’ll no longer be on air, after all these years ... well, that will come.

“It’ll hit me on the way home, on the drive home,” he says.

“It will be hard for a few weeks.”

Of course, there will still be a Rodriguez on TV in Fresno.

His son Rhett is a weekend weather anchor and reporter at KSEE24 and CBS47, and at 25 years old is well on his way to being an accomplished newscaster.

“He’s better than me when I was 25,” Rodriguez says.

“And I thought that I was pretty good.”

Like his father, Rhett Rodriguez has planted roots in Fresno and doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

“The Rodriguez name on TV is probably good for another 30 years.”

Jim De La Vega makes retirement official

Rodriguez is the second long-time KMPH personality to announce a retirement in as many weeks.

Jim De La Vega made official his retirement after a nearly three-month absence from his longtime role on the morning show “Great Day.”

De La Vega had been working in Oregon as a co-anchor with his wife Kathryn Herr and came to Fresno in 2001 when she took a job with CBS47 (she’s still the station’s weeknight anchor and reporter). He worked for a period as a novelist, publishing under the pen name Jim Brown, before returning to the air in 2008 as a weather forecaster at KMPH and joining the “Great Day” crew.

Viewers likely noticed his absence following the death of his brother late last year. He was dealing with that loss when a routine doctor’s exam showed he had high blood pressure (almost 200 at one point, De La Vega says).

The medication he was given had side effects like headaches and vertigo and the leave kept getting extended. Still, De La Vega thought it was a temporary thing.

“I was the only one who didn’t know that I wasn’t coming back.”

De La Vega won’t be without work.

His literary agent sent news that a publishing house was interested in his work and wanted pitches on four ideas for a new book series.

The first book in that series, “My Life in Seconds,” will publish in March 2026, he says.

While he has been missing his co-workers and audience, he’s been telling stories since before he could even write and says being an author is in his heart and soul.

“When I’m writing novels, that’s my safe space.”

This story was originally published May 16, 2025 at 5:30 AM.