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Longtime WFLA News Reporter Rod Challenger Retiring

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By WALT BELCHER

wbelcher@tampatrib.com

Published: February 13, 2009

TAMPA - Longtime WFLA, News Channel 8, reporter Rod Challenger is retiring today after 30 years at the NBC affiliate.

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

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

Challenger says his current contract ends in August, but he is ready to leave now.

"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 local television journalism is on the decline in the wake of the economic downturn.

Still, 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."

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

Prior to joining News Channel 8, he was an anchor of the 11 p.m. news at WTVT, Channel 13, from 1975-78. He also was a news director and anchor at WTSP, Channel 10, for nearly a year.

"I have seen a lot of changes in how we cover the news," Challenger 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.

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