TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Rod Challenger, Longtime WFLA Reporter, To Retire Friday

News Channel 8 photo by KATY HENNIG

Rod Challenger says he wants to travel and spend more time with his family.

ADVERTISEMENT

By WALT BELCHER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 12, 2009

Longtime WFLA, Channel 8, reporter Rod Challenger is retiring Friday after 30 years at the NBC affiliate.

Challenger, 65, manager of News Channel 8's Pinellas Bureau, says he wants to travel and spend more time with his family.

"That sounds like a cliché but its true," he says. "I've got two grandchildren, I like to scuba dive and there are places I want to explore."

He says his current contract ends in August, but he is ready to leave now. "I am leaving voluntarily; I am not being forced out," he says.

"This has been a great profession, and I've been an eyewitness to history, and this has been a part of my identity for so long," he says.

But he says he feels local television journalism has peaked and is on the decline in the wake of the nation's economic downturn.

"It's changing and heading on a downward slope," he says. "I plan to stay in Pinellas and, if the opportunity presents itself in the future, I might do some short-term freelance work for television stations, including Channel 8."

"This is an enormous loss for us," says WFLA News Director Don North. "He will be greatly missed. He was a hard worker and a good reporter. He has been a part of Channel 8 for so long. He has a lot of contacts and he has been an important part of our news team."

Challenger joined WFLA in 1979 and was an assignment manager for five years. He went to the Pinellas Bureau in 1984.

Prior to joining Channel 8, he was an anchor of the 11 p.m. news at WTVT, Channel 13, from 1975 to 1978. He also was a news director and anchor at WTSP, Channel 10, for a nearly a year.

Challenger came to Florida from WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, where for 4 1/2 years he was a reporter and part-time anchor.

Challenger received a Bachelor of Science degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., and was a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War.

"I have seen a lot of changes in how we cover the news," he says, recalling that when he started in television, news operations were using black-and-white film. He says he was involved in the first live report at WTVT in 1975 – coverage of a Ku Klux Klan rally in Riverview.

"I have covered every president from Jack Kennedy to Barack Obama," he says.

The longest running story he has covered is Major League Baseball in St. Petersburg.

"I've covered it from the early efforts to get a team to the building of the stadium, the arrival of the Rays, and their progress all the way to a World Series," he says.

Challenger had double bypass heart surgery in 1991 and a triple bypass in 2003 following a heart attack while he was on vacation in Panama City during which his heart stopped. "I actually died in the emergency room, and it took three shocks to bring me back," he says.

He says he has recovered, and he continues to travel to places such as Indonesia and Thailand to pursue his passion for scuba diving and underwater photography.

Challenger and his wife, Kathy, have a stepson living in Pinellas and a daughter in South Florida.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT