In a season marked by departures, Knapp says she's staying because she lovers her job, new colleagues.
The recent wave of retirements and departures of some of the city's best-known TV news personalities has left KENS 5 ’s Deborah Knapp as something of the last woman standing among local news readers. Nearly a dozen newscasters have bid farewell to TV viewers so far this year, including six of Knapp’s KENS colleagues who accepted company buyouts: Mark Austin , Jessie Degollado , Marilyn Moritz , Mike Osterhage , Ursula Pari and David Sears .
They join other familiar faces who’ve left the air in recent years, including Randy Beamer, Jeff Brady, Delaine Mathieu, Leslie Mouton and Joe Reinagel. “I talked to Ursula to congratulate her and she’s happy,” said Knapp, 69, sitting in the spacious River Walk apartment that she and her husband of 10 years, attorney Celso Gonzalez-Falla, call home. “All the others seem really content, too. It certainly is a blessing to be able to choose your own time.” Knapp, who is under contract with KENS for another year, said station execs have told her she can stay as long as she wants. Still, she concedes she’s feeling the pull of retirement. In fact, in January she went so far as to tell her news director she’d be leaving this year. “My daughter Alicia always asks me when I’m going to retire,” said Knapp, who also has a son, Austin. “When I tell her, ‘I think next year,’ she says, ‘You say that every year.’ But right now I really am thinking next year. I’m thinking 2025 will be it.” Knapp didn’t take the recent buyout in part, she said, because she still gets juiced going into the studio every day and mentoring those she works with. “I love what I do as much as when I began 47 years ago,” she said. “I did think I was going to retire this year but then we got this new group of reporters and I fell in love with all of them.” Those who work with her are pleased she decided to stay a while longer. 'At a time of such upheaval and uncertainty, it's good to see that Deborah's still around,' said weatherman Bill Taylor, who has worked with Knapp for 28 years. 'She's got such integrity that when something goes out over the air, you know she's vetted it and made sure it's as accurate as can be.' RELATED: Former WOAI-TV anchor Delaine Mathieu looks back on her 30-year career in TV news From S.A. to UT Knapp’s mother was a homemaker, her father a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. When she was in middle school, the family moved to San Antonio when her father was transferred to the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB. She attended Garner Middle School and, later, MacArthur High School. 'San Antonio was a great place to grow up,” she said. “I’d get on my bike and we’d ride Nacogdoches all the way to 1604. And I was really fortunate to make great friends I still have today.” She majored in print journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, eventually working her way onto the staff of the Daily Texan. Her first job, covering campus meetings, paid the princely sum of $25 per week. Journalism, she said, helped quench her curiosity, satisfy her love of writing and fulfill her desire for learning new things. “It was so exciting being in the newsroom,” she said. “I could hear people on the phones, how they did interviews. I absorbed so much there.” Her first real exposure to print journalism, however, left a bad taste. “I went to interview for an internship at the Corpus Christi Caller Times,” she said. “Now this was in the 1970s, when newsrooms were all men and all of them, it seemed smoked,” she said. “I could not see myself working there.” But back at school she took a broadcasting course and everything changed. “I was the only senior in the beginning broadcasting class, but I loved it,” she said. “I found I loved interviewing people, reporting stories and putting it all together with pictures and sound.” Her enthusiasm may not have impressed everyone. In a scathing February 1984 Texas Monthly article about the vacuousness of local TV news, UT journalism professor Al Anderson was quoted disparaging a “marginally attractive, slightly overweight who … may not have had a date for the homecoming dance” but, because she had “star quality,” she was making $100,000 in TV news only two years out of UT’s journalism school. The student may have been unnamed, but Knapp, at the time an anchor in Philadelphia, recognized herself immediately. “They’re talking about me,” she roared to her then-husband, Henry Bonilla, at the time a TV news executive and, later, a congressman. When he tried to placate her, pointing out that she had “lots of dates” in college, she retorted, “That’s the least of it! I graduated with honors!” On the rise A day after graduating from UT in 1973, Knapp began working weekends at KSAT as what was then universally referred to as the 'weather girl.' Monday through Friday she also interned in the news department, meaning she was working ten-hour days, seven days a week. But that’s where she wanted to be. “TV news felt more dynamic than newspapers,” she said. “More progressive too; there were probably three, maybe four women in the newsroom.” When she applied for an open anchor position, however, her news director told her she wasn’t “anchor material.” So she applied to KENS and was hired. “Today, whenever I talk to students I tell them not to listen to the naysayers,” she said. “I had a professor and a boss tell me I couldn’t achieve my dream, but I’m still at it.” Nice guy, nice weather: Everything comes up sunny for KENS TV weatherman Bill Taylor Over time she developed a reputation as an indefatigable reporter, willing, for example, to get so close to a smoky carpet store fire that she suffered smoke inhalation and had to be taken to the hospital. And she waited until she was off camera to collapse. While working evenings, she got a call from Good Morning America asking her to do a report from the Southern Governors Conference taking place in San Antonio. Despite her nerves, she did the report without a hitch. “I got calls from around the country after that,” she said. “It helped me land my first agent.” Like most TV journalists, Knapp dreamed of moving on to a larger market, perhaps even to national news. So when the opportunity came to anchor at WCAU in Philadelphia, she took it. She quickly fell in love with the city, especially the family feel she found similar to that in San Antonio. And she reveled in her job as the main anchor, with the resources to cover such stories as Princess Grace’s funeral in Monaco, the release of the Iran hostages and, perhaps the biggest of them all, the Phillies’ 1980 World Series win. In time, however, she began to miss that original San Antonio family feeling. “My parents and so many of my friends were still in San Antonio,” she said. “Then when I had my daughter, I thought, I want to go home.” Back home for good She returned to a hero's welcome — TV ads, billboards — at KENS in 1987 and has been there ever since. She said she’s proud how, over the years, TV news has become less parochial, less “if it bleed it leads.” She said it’s more willing to do big investigative stories, hold city officials accountable and cover international events, such as when she traveled to Rome for the funeral of Pope John Paul II and to Mexico City for the beatification of St. Juan Diego. She also points to the station’s full-court press on such local stories as Winter Storm Uri in 2021 and the Uvalde school shooting in 2022. Knapp also has become deeply embedded in the community, working to preserve and maintain the San Antonio Missions churches, serving as a member of the Alamo College Foundation Board and supporting Communities in Schools, which helps students stay in school eventually go on to college. But what she really takes pride in is mentoring the many young journalists who’ve joined the station recently, including Simoné Simpson, Meredith Haas, Rania Kaur and producer Olivia Villaloboz. Bill Taylor compares the kick she gets taking others under her wing to the way Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has been rejuvenated developing so many young basketball players, including Victor Wembanyama. One of Knapp's biggest success stories may be Jen Tobias-Struski, a producer she first worked with when the two helped launch the station’s 4 p.m. newscast in 2008. With years of encouragement from Knapp, Tobias-Struski earlier this month took on the co-host role at SA Live, KENS’ daily variety and feature show. “Deborah’s always been there for me, helping me on my delivery, my writing, everything,” Tobias-Struski said. “Its unusual for someone in her position to take the time to mentor others and she does it easily, naturally and genuinely. It’s a gift.”
Communities In Schools Garner Middle School Macarthur High School United States Air Force School Of Aerospace Medic Corpus Christi Caller Times Daily Texan Texas Monthly Air Force University Of Texas At Austin KSAT Phillies Alamo College Foundation Board San Antonio Missions Spurs Southern Governors Conference WCAU Deborah Knapp Celso Gonzalez-Falla Ursula Pari Bill Taylor Alicia Delaine Mathieu Henry Bonilla Deborah Mark Austin Al Anderson David Sears Mike Osterhage Marilyn Moritz Jessie Degollado Joe Reinagel Leslie Mouton Jeff Brady Jen Tobias-Struski Randy Beamer Grace UT Knapp Olivia Villaloboz Gregg Popovich St. Juan Diego Pope John Paul II Rania Kaur Meredith Haas Simoné Simpson Victor Wembanyama San Antonio River Walk Austin Philadelphia Brooks AFB Nacogdoches Mexico City Monaco Iran Rome Uvalde 1980 World Series From S.A. SA Live Winter Storm Uri Good Morning America
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