What is your name, where do you work, and where are you from?

Alright, so my name is Bobby Benally. I am a producer/anchor for KCBD news channel here in Lubbock, TX and my hometown is originally San Jon, New Mexico, and I now live here in Lubbock, TX.

So go ahead and tell me about your family and background.

Well, I have my sister and my mom and dad, Bobby and Sylvia Gomez, my sister, Allie Benally. My sister now lives in Clovis, but Mom and Dad still live in San Jon. Born and raised there. I was a born in Las Cruces, NM, and then pretty much after that moved back to my hometown. Once I did that, I was born and raised, went to high school pretty much from preschool all the way to graduating as a Senior in high school and once I did that, I went to a University of Southwest in Hobbs my freshman year, played baseball down there for a year. Then I decided to transfer to Eastern New Mexico and at that time I was actually, going as a criminal justice major, so I wanted to be a police officer, working law enforcement, pretty much my whole life, and that was my whole entire dream was to do that. And then once I got the call from my mom saying, well, if you're going to do that, you're going to law school after you graduate, which I didn't want to do, did not want to go more school. The tryouts for News 3 New Mexico came up. I went and tried it out and Pretty much changed my major right then and there and was a broadcast journalism major and that's what I did pretty much my college career.

Why did you choose to attend ENMU?

To be closer to home I'm, I mean, born and raised. Just close, close knit family. So moving 3 1/2 hours away from home was tough. I know some people enjoy going out and about and for me it was just being close to my family. My sister was also attending Eastern. My cousin also was attending. So just being with my family at that time was really important to me and. I knew about Eastern ever since junior high all the way to my senior year. Umm, so I always knew how small knit the campus was and how just how I enjoyed just the size of it. I guess you can say it wasn't too big, wasn't too small, it was just perfect for me.

Which professors helped mentor you during your time at ENMU?

I mean there’s so many of them that it’s just too tough to count on one hand, whether it’s from Dr. Dobson, Lonzo Lassiter, who's used to be an instructor for me just all the way to Alan Crawford, who's now the news director there for New Mexico, just giving us bits and pieces on what to do, what to expect. Another professor. I don't believe he's there now Dr. Chad Painter. I took immediate ethics class for him my senior year, and it was three hours long just for one day a week and just learning just how the media works and how to use. Just be ethical and just figure out what goes where and the dos and don'ts. And that's where I took a lot out of was a Dr. Chad Painters class and it was great, but pretty much any instructor that I had I had took bits and pieces of and that's what got me to my career now.

What do you want to ultimately achieve in your career?  

I mean in this industry in broadcast journalism, whether you're producer, whether you're an anchor, whether you're working the cameras behind the scenes or anything like that, you try to be the best you can be and you want, as a journalist, your main number one rule is to tell the truth. Never lie, always tell the truth. and that's what I strive to do every day, whether it's producing a newscast, whether it's anchoring, a newscast during the week, whether it's in the weekends or whatever, I want to make sure that the information that I put out to the state, to the pretty much to Lubbock, TX in the South Plains is the truth. Then it's 100% accurate and people can rely on that. Our motto here is coverage. You can count on and that's what we strive for every day.

What advice would you give to students who are interested in your field of study?

Prepare for a lot of hard work deadlines. You do not procrastinate one bit and I was a big procrastinator in high school and in college. Just you got to meet certain deadlines. When it comes to this industry and whether it's a day turn, whether you have to Produce breaking news whether you're in the middle of the newscast and you got to handle breaking news, whether it's a SWAT standoff, whether it's uh anything ranging from an active shooter to a crash on the highway, just to be prepared to make sure that you get the most accurate news out there in a timely manner.

How do you balance home and work life?

Balancing this kind of lifestyle, whether it's you could have a bad day at work. Umm, you can have a good day at work. It doesn't matter. It's just once you punch out your time card and get home, it's you just worry about your family and just take care of your family and you try to just stay away from the news kind of thing. And it's hard to do. I mean, you got social media, you got TV going. It doesn't matter you. Oh there's always news. The news never sleeps and I try my best to stay away from my phone and it's a challenge. But with an 8 month old, he's all hands on deck and it's constant. Just you got to try to balance that out on weekends. If I'm not working or if I get on if I'm on call or something, I try just to stay away from the social media and just be with my wife and kid and that's what I tried to do.

What was your favorite class at ENMU?

I enjoyed my practicums because, I mean it was learning on the fly. You learn how to produce, you learned how to anchor, you learned audio, how to run tapes, and you learn how to run a camera. That’s what I enjoyed the most, was doing that. I mean I got credit for it, and it was pretty great. I wasn’t sitting in a classroom for an hour and a half looking at a book.  

What are some of your hobbies outside of work?

A big golfer, I golf as much as I can. I'm a big family guy. I honestly right now the football season on weekends, it's pretty much just stay home with the baby and wife and we just watch football the entire day. My wife Courtney doesn't like it, but she enjoys just being home with us and I love it more than anything itself, and I think one of the guy I good friend of mine, he said the greatest hobby is being a dad and it's the best job anyone can have. And that's and he's, he's correct. It's the best job I've ever had. Is being a dad and it's my favorite thing to do is just spending weekends with him, whether it and I, I mean, there's always times where go play golf or just be with other friends or do something else or just hang out. That's pretty much my hobbies outside of the workplace.

Are you working on anything special?

But right now we're in the process of handling a digital news desk, so pretty much all of your news nowadays is through social media, through your phone, through Facebook, Facebook lives, whether it's even if you have a push alert through any news organization, CNN, NBC News, and Fox News. If you just have certain push alerts from your local TV stations, anything like that, we can. We're allowed to do that through a digital news desk so we can stream right on the spot. News. And right now, we're in the works of handling a digital news desk, and that's one of the things that I'm spearheading as well, and I'll probably most likely be contributing to that quite a bit.

How has social media affected the news?

social media is going to be here. It's here to stay. And a lot of people feel like broadcast news, whether it's weaning out, which it isn't. I mean, people still are loyal to their TV newscast. They still watch 6:00 o'clock, the 10:00 o'clock news, and the 5:00 o'clock news. They still watch all that social media. It's here to stay, and that's one of the things that the digital news desk we're transitioning to is trying to get those viewers that are on their phones. Well, we're going to give you a broadcast product through social media and it's kind of the way the way the world works nowadays. It's just through social media, whether it's Twitter, Facebook, even Instagram, we get a lot of people send us stuff on Instagram, Facebook Messenger and then that allows us to. Take a little deeper and be like, hey, we saw this on social media and bot. Let's do a story on this kind of thing.

What other dreams do you have?

I know it's not possible. Umm, but the only other dreams that I have is just to be the perfect person in the world. Basically be the perfect husband, be the perfect father, be the perfect brother, and be the perfect son. It's not possible. I mean, there's no such thing as. Nobody's perfect. And I feel like every day I just try to make. My life better and try to make the world I the world around me just more perfect when it comes to that kind of thing. And I just feel like that's one of my dreams just to be the perfect person and it's not going to be a. It's not achievable. I know that no and I just every day is a new day and I just try my best to be the perfect person out there.

What was your favorite part about being a greyhound at Eastern? 

It was just pretty much the fact that because I was the first to graduate from my Family graduate college, so being part of a great, just a greyhound in general, whether we hear just. Other people graduating from different universities, I felt like I was. I was a greyhound for life just because of just where I went, just where I grew up. Being from a small town of about 200 people, I just felt like. Just it felt like I achieved something in it, which I did. I mean I was, I achieved, I graduated, I got a great career. I got a great wife, kid, family, everything. And I have Eastern Mexico to thank for that.