07/31/2025
😎
Some Personal News:
Few people in life are lucky enough to know exactly what they want to be "when they grow up" at nine years old.
Fewer still go on to realize that goal, let alone hold their dream job for 30 years.
I say with no hesitation that the joyous reality of that journey as a "TV Sports Guy" far surpassed my wildest expectations. A blessing for which I will forever be grateful and a supreme credit to where God landed me back in 1995; not only the wonderful community I was honored to serve as KHQA's Sports Director but the invaluable and indescribably talented co-workers there who made me look far better in the job and garnered me far more personal praise than I ever deserved.
On this, my last day at KHQA, trust that I understand exactly how lucky I was and am. Felt that intensely Wednesday night anchoring my final sportscast surrounded in studio by family. Felt it even more on a really emotional Saturday night a few months back for my last OVERTIME when my wife and daughter threw me an impromptu surprise party in the KHQA parking lot. (They are still cleaning up the confetti here, BTW)
Let me say this in no uncertain terms: this departure is not a retirement. I plan to serve this extraordinary sports culture, in a community I have come to adore for a long as the Good Lord allows.
This decision is in no way a referendum on my affection for KHQA and the small but amazing army of great people who still fight there for this community. Abandoning those great folks is far and away the hardest part of this. These are special, special folks. Far cooler and more fun to be around than you could ever truly realize from just seeing them on TV or roaming the hallways alone. If I survived this Thursday with tear ducts intact, it will have been a miracle. I will forever wish the best on these amazing people. (On the plus side, I may have earned Lillian Bricker future martrydom for having had to put up with me for sixteen years.)
Moreover, I need you all to understand that my admittedly muted departure from KHQA was my idea alone. Selfishly, it allows me to feel very full circle about my tenure there. I walked in the door saying this job was always going to be about the great kids, teams, schools and communities we served. Read: not in any way about "me." I get to do that here. Oft times, when people leave TV they are disappeared without explanation. KHQA did not do that to me at all here. They honored my request. To be honest, I abhored the idea of hijacking any part of a live newscast at the cause of my own ego. In this arena, I can say my thank yous and goodbyes and you are free to either read them or ignore them of your own free will without me derailing your newscast. Moreover, if the most talented person in the history of Tri-State TV, Carol Beth Sowers, can say an elegant and classy goodbye in twenty seconds, the rest of us relative schlubs should get no more than five seconds tops. And trust me, I am more appreciative to my KHQA bosses for affording me this accommodation than any farewell gift. And for that, I'm thankful.
This departure is, however, 100% an acknowledgment that at current I don't feel I can best serve the Tri-State Sports culture within the strictures and given the time limitations of the Tri-State-Trusted format. Serving one market well enough to meet my standard of satisfaction was difficult under normal television time constraints. Having to share that window with a second market, even with enthusiastic and wonderful help from Caelan and AJ and Ben along the way, felt like I was being pushed off my priorities. And that was wholly unsatisfying. I would not have signed on for another tour of duty here had I known my job duties would morph into that experience. There have been far too many of those unfair plot twists here, not just for me and my coworkers, but our viewers during Sinclair's ownership here. For everyone's sake, I'm glad they sold us. And with a contract window afforded me, it is was time to get back to a happier place in my own mind.
I can only hope for my colleagues sake at both KHQA and KTVO (home as well to some really awesome media talent) that the incoming new ownership group treats them far better. I've actually had a conversation with a member of the Rincon Leadership team and walked away encouraged that the new folks "get it" at a high level. Under different circumstances, I might have been convinced to stay and get to finish out my dream of ending my career where it started. But I now harbor serious corporate media trust issues after having two different good faith contracts with I signed with Sinclair totally obliterated by the company's philosophic pivots. Won't get fooled again...again, I suppose.
If this is too much candor, apologies. I had a long talk with my mom when I was back home in California this Summer and floated the idea of just casually slipping off radar. Pat Duerr, who still as much as it galls me always knows best, rebuked me into remembering that if you are in the business of talking to people and asking them to trust you for three decades, you owe them reciprocal honesty in return. For all the joy this job has given me, there has also been a personal toll from the hoops we've had to jump through to do the job in here. I knew something needed to change, lest my passion for this would suffer and I would start to vocationally die. This is that pivot point back to the joyous and energizing work that has made me feel like the luckiest dude in the Tri-States for three decades.
So what's next?
Reinvention and reinvigoration. (Just in time for football season, thank God!)
I've been afforded an opportunity to recapture what I love most about "the work" and have spent almost four months now, my heart and mind racing with excitement, for August 4th to get here and to get this thing unleashed.
It's not my place to say "what & where" quite yet but I can assure you details are coming soon.
That I have this second act coming, owes entirely to all of you who have supported me through thick and thin over thirty years. I will never lose appreciation for that and never stop working with all the energy in my soul and passion in my heart for this place to repay that gratitude.
Love ya all, True Believers
Duerr
