Keenan Willard: The Bilingual Reporter Who Worked His Way From El Paso to Los Angeles

Keenan Willard has spent the past several years climbing through some of the country’s biggest local news markets one relocation at a time. He’s now a bilingual reporter for NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo 52, covering breaking news, courts, and community stories across Southern California — the latest stop in a career that has moved from the Texas-Mexico border to North Carolina to Dallas-Fort Worth in the space of about six years.

Quick Facts

Education and Early Internships

Willard earned his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Washington and Lee University, a small liberal arts college in Lexington, Virginia, graduating in 2018. Before he landed his first on-air job, he built up newsroom experience through internships at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters and at WBFF Fox 45 in Baltimore, Maryland — two stops that gave him exposure to both national cable news operations and a local Fox affiliate before he ever went on camera himself.

Starting Out at KFOX14 in El Paso

Willard’s professional television career began in 2019 at KFOX14, the CBS affiliate in El Paso, Texas. Border-market stations like KFOX14 are known as demanding proving grounds for young reporters, often requiring bilingual skills and a heavy daily story count, and it was during this stretch that Willard met Abigail Velez, then also working in the El Paso market; the two started dating in 2019. His time at KFOX14 also laid the groundwork for the Spanish-language reporting skills he’d later use at Telemundo stations in Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles.

Moving to WRAL in Raleigh

From April 2021 to 2023, Willard reported for WRAL, the NBC affiliate in Raleigh, North Carolina — one of the more established and respected local news operations in the Southeast. The move from a border market to a mid-sized Southeastern market is a typical career step for local reporters looking to build a broader news résumé, and WRAL gave Willard nearly two years of experience covering North Carolina state and local news before his next move back to Texas.

Returning to Texas: NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

In November 2023, Willard joined NBC 5 (KXAS-TV) in Dallas-Fort Worth as a reporter for the station’s 10 p.m. newscast, putting him back in his home state and in one of the largest media markets in the country. Over his roughly two years at NBC 5, he covered a wide range of North Texas stories — from DART’s multimillion-dollar transit security overhaul following a string of train shootings, to a Tarrant County family’s push to have charges dropped in a fatal railroad-crossing crash involving their nephew, to contentious Grapevine-Colleyville ISD school board meetings over proposed elementary school closures. That same month he joined NBC 5, Willard married Abigail Velez in a ceremony at McKelligon Canyon in El Paso, the city where the couple had first met.

The Move to NBC Los Angeles and Telemundo 52

In November 2025, Willard announced he was leaving NBC 5 DFW to join NBC4 (KNBC) and Telemundo 52 (KVEA) in Los Angeles, one of the largest media markets in the United States. Announcing the move, he thanked North Texas viewers, calling the DFW market “an incredibly meaningful chapter” of his career. The move doubled as a family one: his wife, who had been reporting for CBS Austin’s KEYE-TV, took a job at KABC-TV in Los Angeles around the same time, putting the couple in the same market at rival stations.

Since joining NBC4 and Telemundo 52, Willard has covered a range of major Southern California stories, including a week-long fire at a 500,000-square-foot cold storage facility in Boyle Heights that triggered days of air-quality advisories, the medical examiner’s ruling on the death of 12-year-old Khimberly Zavaleta, and courtroom testimony in the civil suit over a fatal Westlake Village crash. He reports bilingually, filing stories in both English for NBC4 and Spanish for Telemundo 52 — sometimes on the same story, as with his dual-language coverage of the Palisades Fire criminal case and the Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe festivities in Los Angeles.

A Career Built Market by Market

What stands out about Willard’s résumé is the pattern rather than any single story: five stations across four markets in roughly six years, each one larger or more prominent than the last — El Paso to Raleigh to Dallas-Fort Worth to Los Angeles. It’s a trajectory that mirrors how local television careers are traditionally built in the U.S., with reporters using smaller and mid-sized markets to develop the on-camera reps and bilingual versatility that make them competitive for jobs in the largest ones. His fluency in Spanish, developed and sharpened at border and bilingual stations, has become a defining part of that trajectory, letting him serve two audiences — and two newsrooms — at once in Los Angeles.

FAQ

What does Keenan Willard do at NBC4? He’s a bilingual reporter for NBC4 (KNBC) and Telemundo 52 (KVEA) in Los Angeles, covering breaking news and community stories in English and Spanish.

Where did Keenan Willard work before NBC Los Angeles? He was a reporter at NBC 5 (KXAS) in Dallas-Fort Worth, WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, and KFOX14 in El Paso, Texas, where his TV career began in 2019.

What did Keenan Willard study in college? He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Washington and Lee University in 2018.

Is Keenan Willard married? Yes. He married fellow television reporter Abigail Velez in October 2023; the two met while both working in the El Paso news market.

A Reporter Who Followed the Markets Up

Keenan Willard’s path from a border-town CBS affiliate to one of NBC’s flagship stations traces a fairly classic local-news career arc, but one he and his wife — also a television reporter — have navigated together at nearly every stop, from El Paso to Raleigh to Dallas-Fort Worth and now Los Angeles. His bilingual reporting for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 puts him at a station built to serve one of the country’s largest Spanish-speaking media markets, a role that draws directly on the skills he first developed at the very start of his career.