8-2-13
Reporter and on-air personality Martha Martinez is headed for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. Martinez was known to many as ?The News Muchacha? when she worked alongside Texas Radio Hall of Famer?s Mark Stevens and Jim Pruett on KLOL in Houston, as well as KEGL in Dallas. In a time when female news anchors were limited to fluff or puff, Martha strove to maintain the highest of journalistic integrity ? even in a studio full of ?Bad Boys.?
Born in San Antonio and a seventh-generation Texan, Martinez attended San Antonio College and Trinity University, majoring in Psychology and Radio, Television and Film. Martinez was first hired by Programmer Woody Roberts at KEXL-FM in San Antonio, where she worked 10p-2a and served as Music Director for the AOR leader. Roberts has pointed out that Martinez was the first Hispanic female on the air fulltime in the market. When KEXL?s format was changed and the staff replaced, Martinez was moved to sister station KITE-AM, where she began what has become a 35 year career in News and Information.
In 1983, Martinez was first linked with the infamous ?Bad Boys? of Radio, Stevens and Pruett, at KEGL-FM, and moved with them to Houston?s legendary Rocker, KLOL-FM in 1986. In 1996, she was fortunate enough to have been included in the lineup of the first All News Channel on the FM band, KEWS in Dallas?the brainchild of CBS Chief Les Moonves. A tragic antenna accident brought about the untimely end of KEWS, but Martinez was moved into the lineup at sister station KYNG-FM, the first ?Young Country? in the nation, where she remained until that station?s format was replaced with a ?Rock Talk? format.
After a tenure with Mobility Technologies? Traffic Dot Com, which gave her an opportunity to work as a traffic reporter with Terry Dorsey and Hawkeye at KSCS-FM, Martinez once again was blessed with the chance to work at KFNC in Houston, hired by Laurie Kendrick as part of a stellar team at the FM News Channel owned by Cumulus. For two and a half more years, Martinez worked for Navteq Traffic before she joined the News 92 FM
