Vanessa Romo leaves KMPH TV in Fresno. Local media grad is moving across the country
Vanessa Romo was well in her comfort zone, as a sports reporter and anchor at KMPH Fox 26.
Which made it difficult to leave the Fresno television station after more than two years on the job.
Romo said her goodbyes during a final segment Sunday night.
By Tuesday, she was across the county in Florida, where she moved to look for work and be with her boyfriend, who serves in the Air Force.
“There is no growth in comfort,” Romo told The Bee in an interview.
“I just needed a change.”
Romo came to the station as a Valley native.
She grew up in Fresno and attended McLane High School and then Sunnyside High, where she graduated before enrolling at Fresno State. She would become sports editor of the Collegian, the campus publication.
Romo says she wanted to become a nurse or do sports medicine, given her background as a triple-sport athlete, but was recruited by the university’s Radio Television Digital News Association while taking a general education journalism class.
Not that she thought a job in TV news was attainable.
“I thought all the news people growing up were actors and actresses,” she says.
Romo interned at KMPH in 2017 and returned to the station after a stint with KERO, the ABC station in Bakersfield. Being back on the air in Fresno was a full-circle moment, she says, and also her end goal.
She took pride in being able to report on Central Valley athletes and coaches, especially from her alma mater.
“Them letting me tell their stories,” she says, “it made everything worth it.”
Where is Andrew Marden after KSEE?
In similar TV sportscaster news, Andrew Marden left Fresno earlier this month for a job in Sacramento.
He made his final appearance a reporter and sports director for KSEE providing coverage during Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.
Marden had been in the Fresno market for nearly two decades and hosted the hosted Fresno State sports show “Bulldog Insider.”
He is now the sports director at KTXL Fox 40, which is owned by Nexstar Media Group.
