Longtime River Forest resident Roz Varon has helped Chicagoans reach their destinations safely and efficiently during rush hour since 1989.
Yet after an impressive and trailblazing 35-year career at ABC7 Chicago, Varon retired from her role as a traffic/transportation anchor earlier this month.
She was Chicago’s first broadcast television traffic anchor and one of the original team members at “ABC7 Eyewitness News This Morning,” which debuted in April 1989.
“So, the anniversary of the morning show is also my personal anniversary at the show,” Varon said.
Varon grew up in Niles and attended Columbia College Chicago, where she graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast communications. Before joining the team at ABC7, she worked as a radio traffic reporter in the Chicagoland area for nine years. When Varon learned that WLS-Channel 7 was planning on starting a morning newscast that would incorporate a traffic anchor, she set her sights on working in television. She auditioned – but was disappointed to learn that she did not land the role.
“Everybody, including myself, who auditioned for this came from radio,” Varon said. “We were all terrible. None of us had ever done a green screen. We were all awkward and stiff.”
Varon decided to give it another shot.
With a better idea of what they were looking for, she set out to make a second audition tape. It included a segment where she confidently stood on a bridge above an expressway, reporting on the traffic below. Not long after submitting her new tape, Varon was thrilled to learn that her determination and persistence had paid off. She got the job, and has been a fixture on ABC7’s morning news ever since.
When she first arrived at Channel 7’s studio at 190 N. State St., the team had Varon shadow anchor Alan Krashesky for a week before she started to learn how to become a television reporter.
“The traffic, I knew. The reporting, I didn’t,” Varon said. “So, they said ‘as long as you’re going to be anchoring traffic for the morning news, we’re going to teach you to be a TV news reporter and transportation will be your beat.’”
In addition to her role as the morning traffic anchor, Varon did extensive transportation coverage during her 35-year career at ABC7. She also produced a series on nearby driving destinations – a mini vacation you can get to on a tank of gas – called “Roz Varon’s 1 Tank Trips.”
Varon said one of her favorite “1 Tank Trips” was to Indiana Dunes National Park.
“That’s one that stands out,” she said. “Everybody, especially my daughter, reminds me of the fact that when the instructor was teaching me how to kayak and he pushed me off the first thing I did was flip over.”
Despite that rough start, Varon said she carried on and had a great time during the experience.
“If you can’t make fun of yourself then, well, give it up,” she said.
Another significant contribution that Varon made during her time at ABC7 was her “Weekender” report, a weekly roundup of metro Chicago events.
“I spent more time producing ‘Weekender’ than I did with my traffic stuff,” she said. “It got to the point where people really were looking forward to that so they could plan what they were going to do.”
Throughout her career, Varon has won multiple Emmy Awards in traffic reporting, specialty programming, spot news and features. She has also been honored with several Peter Lisagor Awards. The Girl Scouts recognized her as a role model with their Girl Scouts of the USA Thanks Badge and she has also won the Illinois Broadcasters Association’s Silver Dome Award for her breast cancer special, “Faces of Inspiration.”
A cancer survivor, Varon has used her platform to help heighten cancer prevention and awareness ever since she received a stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis in 2006.
“I consider myself a conduit,” she said. “I mean, at the time, I had a platform. I still have a platform. I’m still all over social media, so I take that responsibility very seriously. As long as I have that platform, it gives me an opportunity to help people.”
Now that Varon has retired, she said she will miss her co-workers, but she’s happy to no longer wake up at 1:30 a.m. each morning for work.
“The only plan that I have right now is to visit my daughter Sara in Albuquerque as often as I can,” she said. “And I need to get on a regular sleep schedule.”