KABC's Ellen Leyva signs off after 30 years in moving final broadcast: 'I'm really lucky'

News anchor Ellen Leyva’s decades-long tenure with KABC has officially travel to an end. During her last broadcast this week, she said “I cannot judge my luck to beryllium present for 30 years.”

Leyva bid an affectional farewell connected Wednesday to the KABC newsroom and the viewers she helped pass and entertain during her send-off. She announced her determination to discontinue successful February, telling the assemblage astatine the time, “I’m acceptable to marque a determination connected and absorption connected my adjacent large escapade successful life.”

During the broadcast, Leyva became a communicative taxable herself, inspiring a tender conception that walked viewers down the representation lane of her tenure. Her status besides prompted a sit-down speech with her longtime co-anchor David Ono. Leyva, an Arizona native, came to the Glendale-based presumption successful 1995 arsenic a wellness newsman and aboriginal joined the anchor desk, moving from greeting quality to the evening quality post, wherever she remained for 25 years.

“I didn’t cognize what to expect, I conscionable knew that I couldn’t judge I was moving astatine KABC,” she recalled to Ono. “My biggest fearfulness was I would not marque it and I wouldn’t beryllium bully capable to enactment connected the air.”

Leyva, contempt her concerns, managed to bash conscionable that and more. Over the years, she has co-hosted Oscars reddish carpet arrivals, flown with the Blue Angels and provided Angelenos with a dependable on-air presence. Earlier this year, Leyva kept viewers informed during the destructive wildfires that ripped done the region, including the Eaton fire. She said Wednesday that she was displaced from her Altadena location during the blaze.

Beyond the desk, Leyva represented the KABC newsroom astatine respective Los Angeles parades, was a squad person for AIDS Walk Los Angeles and advocated for intelligence wellness services for underserved communities.

“I’m truly lucky,” she said during the segment.

The last moments of Leyva’s bow astatine KABC saw her down the desk, surrounded by newsroom staff, friends and household who applauded her. “This spot has been the astir unthinkable spot to work,” she said. “I cannot judge my luck to beryllium present for 30 years.”

Leyva turned her attraction to her viewers: “It has been an grant and a privilege to beryllium welcomed into your surviving rooms each afternoon. You ever made maine consciousness similar a welcomed guest.”

As she begins her retirement, Leyva said she is looking guardant to being connected the different broadside of the surface arsenic a protagonist and spectator of KABC. For Leyva, it seems breaking quality is not her occupation anymore — astatine slightest that’s according to a cheeky status acquisition candle the anchor posted to Instagram.

Times unit writer Meg James contributed to this report.