Olga Campos Benz
By Forrest Preece
Many Austinites recognize Olga Campos Benz from her career on the air as a television news anchor and reporter. These days she and her husband Kevin Benz, also a well-known news professional, run a media relations/consulting firm with a number of high-profile clients. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I wanted to find out more of her story.
While growing up in Houston, family was important to Olga and she still reveres her elders. She comes from a clan with a rich tradition of proud and successful women. Her grandmother, Concepcion Guzman, her great Tía Paz Hernandez, and her father’s mother, Maria Ramos Campos, were role models and she often thinks of their escape from the horrors of the Mexican Revolution, when they immigrated to Texas from Mexico in the early 1900s.
Olga’s turning point in life came when she was a junior at Stephen F. Austin High (in Houston). Because of one regrettable decision, she got into trouble, and the costs were grievous. She had to forfeit honors received and couldn’t run for cheerleader or class officer. Feeling defeated and angry, she was ready to cave in and fulfill the “bad girl” label that she’d been saddled with.
That is when Ms. Alford, her school counselor, stepped in with advice that would reset Olga’s trajectory. The advisor held her arms wide apart to signify Olga’s life still ahead of her. Then she pinched an index finger and thumb together to show the relatively minuscule size of that one misstep. “She urged me to put it behind me and to get on with proving my self-worth,” Olga says.
The next year Olga was crowned Miss Fiestas Patrias, a serious honor in Houston’s large Mexican-American community. She also earned a college scholarship and appeared in Seventeen magazine -- all thanks to that advice. Olga says that she has shared those words of wisdom with several young adults whose lives might otherwise be derailed by one mistake.
Speaking of that Seventeen Magazine appearance -- during high school, Olga served on the Foley’s Teen Council. Girls from Houston area schools worked together on community projects and were in-store models under the guidance of Dallas Hill, Houston’s first supermodel. Thanks to her work on the council, Olga was selected to travel to New York City to be featured in an issue of Seventeen magazine. It was a whirlwind trip that included a private jet, a party at the Elizabeth Arden penthouse, and a photo shoot in The Hamptons. Not bad!
So how did she get into the broadcast news business? Olga says that when she was growing up, most young Latinas dreamed of getting married and having kids. Those who worked outside the home followed more gender-specific paths toward teaching, nursing, housekeeping, or child care.
Olga’s parents had instilled the value of higher education as a path to a professional career that would make the most of her talents. After reviewing her choices, Olga came to the University of Texas and earned a degree in Radio-Television-Film, leading her to the world of broadcast news. That business has been a constant source of excitement and satisfaction for her, especially when she interviews people with interesting life experiences and then shares their unique stories on the air.
After graduating from UT-Austin her first television job was at KIII-TV in Corpus Christi. Since she had zero reporting experience, she was offered a hybrid position that required her to serve as the newsroom secretary in the morning before being allowed to tackle minor reporting assignments in the afternoons. “My first assignment was covering the grand opening of a Levi Strauss factory, but on the way, I was redirected to a multi-car crash with fatalities. I ended up with the lead story that evening which never happens to rookie reporters,” Olga says.
She was only in Corpus Christi for a year, but remembers the biggest news story of 1978 was a massive oil spill about 500 miles off the coast. National reporters descended, tarballs washed ashore, and it was the first time she witnessed serious damage to the environment.
Her TV career included a stint in Austin at KTBC (1980 - 1985), then she went to the Fox affiliate in Houston (1985 - 1995) before returning to Austin to join the news team at KVUE (1995 - 2012). She covered many major weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, tornados, and ice storms. Along the way, there were some unforgettable crises. In 1995, she flew to Oklahoma City when the Murrah Building was leveled by a bomb. She also covered a gas pipeline explosion that killed more than 200 people in Guadalajara, Mexico. Olga traveled there twice for the initial explosion and followed doctors from Houston back there with medical supplies. She adds there have been too many homicides and criminal trials to count during her on-air career.
One tragic reporting assignment still haunts her -- waiting outside the home of US Congressman Mickey Leland of Houston when his plane went down following a mission trip to Ethiopia. He was a friend to many people in that area, including Olga’s parents.
Election nights hold vivid memories, including November 7, 2000 when she stood on scaffolding in freezing temperatures outside the State Capitol as the world waited for returns in the Bush-Gore Presidential election. And then there was the excitement at the Texas Democratic Victory Party eight years later when Barack Obama clinched the Presidency. “Every story of that caliber is important to me because of the direct impact on the lives of others,” Olga says.
It’s been a natural transition to media consultant as Olga guides clients on how best to craft messaging and branding for their products and services. The goal is to capture the public’s attention in order to grow their customer base and with it, revenue. In broadcasting, success is measured by viewership: the better the ratings, the higher a station can charge for commercial airtime. “Both processes begin the same by earning trust, something I’ve been doing my entire professional life.”
Olga has a great home life as well. She loves being around her husband of 35 years, Kevin Benz, and their twin daughters, Corazon and Allegra. “They’re such amazing, successful, beautiful young women -- just seeing their faces or hearing their voices makes me happy! Add their boyfriends, David Henry and Adam Paris, our collective rescue dogs, and knowing they are all healthy makes me ecstatic! Our time with loved ones and friends is the best!”
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The person Olga admires the most, in her words.
The year is 1965 and after 11 years of marriage, a 33-year old Latina decides to go to college and earn her bachelor’s and master’s degree - all while raising four young children, working full-time, and with a husband whose job as a longshoreman required his absence from home for weeks at a time. The woman and her husband are involved in local civic and political causes and at age 63 she had enough of following policies which ignored the educational needs of minority children. So she stepped down as an assistant principal to run for - and win - a seat on the Houston ISD school board. Her life wasn’t without challenges. In the 1970s her focus on family forced her to set aside her doctoral dissertation, but in 2021 at age 91, she was awarded an Honorary PhD for her many achievements in the field of public education. At 93, my mom, Maria Esther Campos, is the living person I admire most.
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