KOAT general manager to retire
Roper, also president, has been with the TV station for 41 years
When Mary Lynn Roper began her career at KOAT-TV, Channel 7, back in 1977, the rookie reporter received a tip about a significant news event.
Although she doesn’t clearly remember what that event was, she does recall that instead of allowing her to chase after that story, station management instead sent her to cover a rose garden show.
“It still sticks in my craw,” she said. “When I walk through the newsroom now, the majority of employees are women, and that certainly wasn’t the case 41 years ago, so we’ve come a long way, baby.”
Roper, who has since worked her way up to become the station’s president and general manager, announced Friday that she will be retiring this fall.
“It feels surreal,” she told the Journal. “I still love my job and the people I work with, but when it began occurring to me that I’ve been the general manager for 25 years and at the station for 41 years, I thought maybe it’s time to consider something else. I don’t know what that something else will be. Maybe a better golf game or getting in shape.
We’ll just have to see what the next act brings.”
Roper’s career in broadcasting began at age 13 when she worked as a janitor at KRTN, a Raton radio station owned by her parents. By age 14 she was an on-air disc jockey, spinning popular rock ‘n’ roll tunes of the era.
After relocating to Albuquerque, she worked at an all news radio station before joining KOAT as a reporter and photographer. In time, she began racking up a series of firsts: First female “Action 7” coanchor, first female news director, first female corporate officer with Pulitzer Broadcasting, which owned KOAT before it was sold in 1999 to Hearst Television, and first female general manager in this market.
In addition to the newsroom gender shift, there has also been tremendous changes in technology.
“When I started, we shot film, so after reporting a story we had to take the film to a place to be developed and then we took it to the station and edited the film and the voice track,” Roper recalled. “Field cameras and studio cameras used to be huge. Now they’re very compact, digital and everything is instantaneous and you can go live.”
Under her guidance, KOAT has been a regular ratings leader. News teams have earned a national Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, multiple regional Emmy Awards and Edward R. Murrow Awards, New Mexico Broadcasters Association Station of the Year honors and National Association of Broadcasters awards for public service campaigns.
In 2005 Roper was inducted into the New Mexico Broadcasters Hall of Fame; in 2008 she was named New Mexico Broadcaster of the Year; and in 2013 she received an American Advertising Federation of New Mexico Silver Medal.
Roper currently serves on the boards of the Foundation for Open Government, the New Mexico Broadcasters Association and the United Way Mission Families Council.
Even though Roper isn’t sure what she will do after she retires, she knows where she will be doing it.
“I’m a native New Mexican. I have to have my blue skies. I’m here and I’m staying here,” she said.