You see, Mr. Lopez during this lengthy time has become a hallowed TV fixture in these parts reporting on this diverse tableaux of stories since going to work at then KHJ Channel 9 on April 12, 1972 and then joining KCBS Channel 2 on June 13, 1977 after a brief interlude in San Diego.

You name it, and Dave Lopez has covered it, from five Dodgers World Series appearances to the O.J. Simpson Trial to the Northridge Earthquake to the 1992 Rodney King Riots to the Dodgers' last world championship in 1988 to the Angels' first world championship in 2002 to John Wooden's last NCAA title and farewell game in 1975 to an interview with the Pentagon Papers' David Ellsberg to countless human interest yarns to countless tragic tales to City Hall malfeasance to hillside mudslides to hillside fires to Hillside Stranglers (Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi) to freeway car chases to the Freeway Killer (William Bonin) to the 1984 LA Olympics to so many other events that you would need to cut down a large forest to find enough paper to list all his fertile endeavors across the decades.

[Scroll down for further.]

"How many fires did I cover? Too many." Photo credit: Joel Fallon, Photographer CBS2/KCAL9

It was Mr. Lopez's seven jailhouse interviews with Bonin that earned him his first of several Emmy Awards -- he's also been bestowed several Golden Mike Awards as well as other honors --as Bonin revealed to Mr. Lopez that he had killed 21 young men. Mr. Lopez actually testified at the trial of Mr. Bonin, who became the first person in California to be executed by lethal injection on February 23, 1996.

Dave Lopez has been listed as a general assignment reporter, but this man with the poised demeanor and smooth delivery has been far more than that during his extraordinary career in becoming the longest tenured newsman on LA television and a respected figure among his viewers and peers.

He has served Channel 2 as a foreign correspondent, spending a week covering the early parts of the savage Somalia Civil War in the battered city of that country's capital, Mogadishu.

"That was definitely the most frightening assignment I've ever had -- and I've had a few over the years," says Mr. Lopez, a long-time resident of Long Beach. "I saw a lot of stuff that was awful. I saw a bunch of young kids in a vacant lot playing with a patched-up soccer ball. At closer glimpse, the ball turned out to be a human head. There were so many dead and dying people on the streets. Total chaos. We had bodyguards, but bodyguards don't stop bullets shot a few hundred yards away. I never was happier than when I was able to get out of Mogadishu and managed to hitch a ride on a Russian transport plane to Nairobi, Kenya, from where I flew to London and back to the USA. A truly harrowing experience."

Sponsor

Sponsor

Mr. Lopez also spent a week accompanying Pope Francis during his American visit in 2015 when he was in the country to make a Spanish missionary a saint as he canonized the 18th century Franciscan theologian, Junipero Serra, who has been credited with spreading Christianity in California.

"I became quite popular with the east coast reporters because I was the only one who could correctly pronounce Junipero Serra's name," quips Mr. Lopez. "What an experience that was. I'm of the Catholic faith and, obviously, it was quite special for me to be around the Pope."

Dave Lopez spent a week in San Francisco in the aftermath of the October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake that seriously damaged the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and shut down the World Series between the Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants for 10 days.

"A lot of shattered buildings and a portion of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge fell on the lower deck killing a lot of people in cars," he says solemnly "We've had bad earthquakes in Southern California in my time, but that San Francisco one did a lot of damage on that bridge. I've seen a lot of stuff across the years, a lot of it good but a lot of it also bad."

This adventurous, fulfilling and productive life that Dave Lopez has pursued and savored across five decades will come to a close Tuesday evening, when he will make his final appearance on Channel 2.

Sponsor

Sponsor

The 72-year-old gentleman who grew up in South Gate in a close-knit family of eight---six boys and two girls---is retiring and looking forward to a stress-free existence bereft of daunting deadlines and nerve-wracking interviews in tense situations.

"I'm really looking forward for the first time in my life of having some free time on my hands to do whatever I want to do," he says. "It seems I've lived so much of my life on tight deadlines and a rush to get my story on the air."

I asked Mr. Lopez what he was most proud of during his lengthy toils.

"I'd have to say the fact that I was able to stay relevant through all these years," he says. "I never lived in the past, and always tried to keep up with the times. And I always had a knack for coming up with a story."

Not surprising, since Mr. Lopez began as a newspaperman, doing a part-time gig at the old Huntington Park Signal as a sportswriter as a 16-year-old junior in high school. After graduating from Southgate High in 1966, he became a full-time employee at the Signal -- "I was earning a whopping $101.50 a week!" -- where he remained throughout his years of college, eventually obtaining a journalism degree from Los Angeles State.

In 1970, Mr. Lopez married his high school sweetheart, Elaine Ekberg, and they would have a son and daughter and would remain happily together until she passed away in 2013 after a lengthy illness.

Sponsor

His life took a dramatic turn in the spring of 1972 when the young couple was renting an apartment in Long Beach, and when one evening he was changing TV channels and came across one he hadn't before noticed.

"It was called Channel 8 and was owned by Times-Mirror that at the time also owned the LA Times -- and it was sort of an experimental cable channel for the company," he says. "I went down to Channel 8's office, and somehow talked its management into giving me a job. It was great. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I wound up doing the TV play-by-play of the Long Beach State basketball games at the old Gold Mine and Long Beach Arena. Jerry Tarkanian was the coach. Great experience. I also did a newscast every day.

"I was pretty ambitious in those days and, on a whim I decided one afternoon to call up a fellow named Fernando Del Rio, who was a newsreader at Channel 9. We talked a while and I told him my aspirations, and within a few days the Channel 9 program director called me and offered me a one week tryout. I did it, and, incredibly, they liked my work and in that brief period I began working full-time at Channel 9. I did both hard news and sports in those early days. I later did a sports full-time before I accepted an offer from KFMB, Channel 8 in San Diego where I worked for six months until Channel 2 came calling."

Dave Lopez's affection for sports came from his father, Al Lopez, a one-time amateur boxing champion who operated a popular shop for 44 years on Firestone Blvd. called Garfield Upholstery.

The elder Lopez was a passionate sporting aficionado and for several years took his son and several of his friends to all the home games of the Los Angeles Rams at the Coliseum -- "my dad would buy a $3.50 ticket and the Rams would let kids get in free in those days" -- and Mr. Lopez accompanied his father to such other venues as the Olympic Auditorium, Wrigley Field, Gilmore Field, Pan Pacific Auditorium and Dodger Stadium throughout his youth.

"I grew up on sports," says Mr. Lopez.

He also grew up to cover almost every major story in Los Angeles for nearly a half century, and along the way working alongside such TV luminaries as George Putnam, Jerry Dunphy, Clete Roberts, Connie Chung, Hal Fishman, Brent Musburger, Jim Lampley, Maury Povich, Trisha Toyota, Joe Benti, Jim Hill and so many others.

"A surreal life of gladness and a realization of my most fanciful dreams," says Mr. Lopez, who got married the past year to the prominent photographer, Diandra Jay, now working for Los Angeles County. "I've been so blessed, so fortunate in my life. I mean, I lasted in one of the most competitive, most fickle TV fields in America where the longevity of so many of the on-air personnel is less than the career of an NFL player which I believe is less than three years. I have absolutely no regrets. But, oh, can I live on my thrilling memories."