PAULY VENIDA

August 9, 1944 - August 18, 2021

Bakersfield has lost one of its great newshounds. Pauly Venida, former Kern County bureau chief at Los Angeles news station and talk station KNX 1070, died peacefully August 18 at age 77 from complications related to COPD.

Pauly grew up in the San Fernando Valley the son of a White House chef. His young life took off at L.A. Pierce College, where he joined Omega Alpha Epsilon and became part of a brotherhood he would value the rest of his life.

After college he got a steady job at L.A. City Hall. But it wasn't until he started in newspaper reporting in the western San Fernando Valley that his career got his heart pumping.

A news editor at CBS Radio witnessed Pauly on the job one day and offered him a lifetime contract almost on the spot. That led to a broadcast career that took him to far-flung assignments, including a story he did at Air Force One -- a big honor for an amateur pilot.

Locally, Pauly was an unmatched reporter-on-the-street. He predicted the 2014 Bakersfield bus strike months ahead of time, based on events no one else in the news media was monitoring, and was frequently on the line with local journalists filling them in on events as they occurred. “Just to give you the headsup,” he would begin his calls. A story he worked on about local sludge processing won a prominent broadcast-news award.

He and his late wife Linda lived in Frazier Park for years, travelling to attend professional sporting events and enjoying active social lives until her untimely death. He had lost another wife and his only two children in a car accident many years before. His jewish faith was a source of happiness for him and he was proud to have taken an opportunity to travel to Israel.

Even into his 70s Pauly got around more than seemed possible. If there was construction happening, a fire or a vehicle accident anywhere in Bakersfield, Pauly was on the phone with someone about it.

His quirks endeared him to his friends in the business: Pauly would order a half-Coke, half-Diet Coke at Sandrini's (and a refill), for example, and insisted on having conversations with busy workers. Openness was part of who Pauly was: happy to introduce himself and interview anyone with information to share.

His remains lie with Greenlawn Southwest in Bakersfield.