PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Minerva Pérez is an award-winning Broadcast Journalist; longtime TV News Anchor and now a Co-Host and Partner of the new cable show, LATINA VOICES. She is also Owner/President of Minerva Pérez Media, LLC, a Public Relations/Communications firm.

Latina Voices is a Houston Cable show she created and developed. It is the first half-hour, English language, Internet streamed, Latino-themed talk show of its kind in the country. First launched in February 2008, Latina Voices will soon be viewed on the Internet, part of the New Media considered the future of television broadcasting.

Previous to Latina Voices, Minerva was known as a trendsetter and became the first Latina News Anchor at KTRK TV/ABC 13 in Houston, Texas, where she spent 15 and half years. She was already a highly respected and experienced Anchor/Reporter at the number one rated independent TV station, KTLA TV in Los Angeles, where she also was the first Mexican American News Anchorwoman on the Peabody Award-winning News At Ten Weekend Edition. During her 5 and half year tenure at KTLA, she was recognized with many awards for her reporting and community involvement. There she covered such notable stories as Pope John Paul II’s visit to Los Angeles’ Live 48 – hour coverage; the Whittier Earthquake; the notorious Rodney King beating, the Hollywood scene; Presidents Reagan and Bush (41).

Her reporting lead to two (2) Golden Mike Awards; a Cesar Award; a Los Angeles Press Club Award and three (3) Emmy nominations, several AP awards and numerous accolades from community organizations.

She began her broadcasting career at KURV RADIO in Edinburg, TX and KGBT RADIO in Harlingen, TX. From there, she moved on to her television broadcasting career at KGBT TV in Harlingen, TX before moving on to the major TV markets of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Houston as Reporter and Anchor.

A Lone Star native, Minerva grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Pam Am (formerly Pan American University) with a degree in Mass Communications/Spanish.

Minerva has always been involved in her community. She has served on the boards of the Mayor’s Council on Literacy: The Houston Read Commission; The Harris County Children’s Assessment Center; The Advisory Council of the Women’s Resource Center of Greater Houston; The Morales Foundation, a non-profit educational organization; Honorary Board Member of the Puente Learning Center of East L-A., a literacy program; Honorary Board member of the Montebello Hispanic Coalition; Past President and Lifetime Member of the Houston Association of Hispanic Media Professionals; a Lifetime Member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ); Advisory Board member of the Education for the 21st Century: The Bilingual Spelling Bee. She is also a Lifetime Member of the University of Texas at Pan American (UTPA) Alumni Association and serves on its Advisory Board, Houston Chapter. Minerva also serves as board member of Darla’s School for Mentally Retarded Adults in Houston, TX.

Minerva has also been featured in a Prentice Hall/Texas Edition Textbook, Juntos, Simon and Schuster Education Group in 1997, as one of three Texan Hispanic Role Models with former Archbishop of San Antonio Patrick Flóres and former HUD Secretary, San Antonio Mayor, Henry Cisneros. Minerva has also been featured in several publications including: The Los Angeles Times, “Vanidades,” an internationally distributed Mexican magazine; Nuestras Vidas, a monthly Texas magazine, Texas Hispanic Magazine and Houston’s 002 Latino magazine, El Día Newspaper, The Houston Chronicle and Fort Bend County’s The Herald Coaster and the Fort Bend Star and Sun Newspapers.

Although gone from Los Angeles for years, Minerva remains a presence with the “Minerva Pérez Communications Scholarship” given annually by the Montebello Hispanic Coalition.

UTPA PROFILE
CLASS OF ‘81

Minerva Pérez, Award-winning Broadcast Journalist, TV Talk Show Host, Writer, Producer and UTPA Alum, says her professional success is rooted in divine intervention, low expectations, and a little bit of luck. “Not much was expected of young Latinas from the Valley,” she recounts.

The Class of ’81 UTPA Alumni Association Lifetime Member is now trying her luck on an unprecedented TV and Internet streamed Talk Show she created and is launching in Houston in August, 2008. LATINA VOICES, she says, will fill a niche long overdue in the Talk Show genre, which up to now “ignores the English speaking, educated Latino professional, namely women,” and will be part of the New Media.

Exciting as it may sound, it’s how the longtime TV News woman came to achieve those accomplishments that begs attention. Minerva readily admits that her profession “fell in my lap.” “I never aspired to be a news reporter/anchor. The profession found me,” she says.

The Rio Grande Valley native says it was in the late 70’s on a trip to the Mall that changed her life. She ran into longtime TV weathercaster, Larry James, who incidentally, was passing out scholarship applications sponsored by his station, KGBT TV, the dual network station in Harlingen, Texas. He pushed an application into her hands and told her “here, you might be interested in this,” fateful words that DID change Minerva’s life. She applied for the Don Mallory Mass Communications Memorial Scholarship and won it every year for the next 3 years.

While studying Mass Communications and Spanish at UPTA’s School of Liberal Arts, Minerva interned for KGBT TV’s Newscenter 4 newsroom. “I used to cry on the way to the station during those years, scared of not knowing what I was doing and fearing ridicule, which I got plenty of from my peers.” She quickly learned her profession and soon moved on to major TV markets in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. In the early 90’s, the “homesick Tejana” settled at the ABC network owned and operated station KTRK TV in Houston where she became the first Latina News Anchor and where she spent over 15 years as part of the Eyewitness News team.

Minerva’s reporting has lead to many awards including 3 Regional Emmy nominations, a Los Angles Press Club award, 2 Golden Mike Awards, an Associated Press Club award, and countless Public Service awards and national recognitions in Arizona, California and Texas.

This from a Valley Girl whose High School counselor expected her to “go off and just have babies.”

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