{"id":376840,"date":"2026-06-27T04:17:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T04:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376840\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T04:17:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T04:17:34","slug":"despite-positive-cancer-prognosis-fresno-tv-news-anchor-retiring-from-kmph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376840\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite positive cancer prognosis, Fresno TV news anchor retiring from KMPH"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea was always that Monty Torres would return to KMPH.<\/p>\n

That was the message when he took medical leave following a lung cancer diagnosis<\/a> in October. \u201cI would like to be able to come back. To come back and tell everybody I\u2019m still here and that God is good,\u201d the evening news anchor told The Bee at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to be able to share that message.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he did, in a video segment to viewers<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy symptoms have nearly all disappeared,\u201d Torres said in a nearly three-minute segment, in which he also announced his official retirement from the station.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter more than 20 years as part of the FOX 26 news family, I am here tonight to also sadly announce that I will not be returning to the news desk.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the message, Torres will remain in the Valley with his family to focus on his recovery, unless \u201cGod sends us somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torres discovered he had non-small cell lung cancer after a partially collapsed right lung landed him in the emergency department. The cancer was inoperable and incurable, \u201cbut still treatable,\u201d he told viewers at the time. In late October, he began a treatment plan that attacked the \u201cmutations within the cell line of the cancer itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent biopsy of trace fluid from his lung showed \u201cno malignant cells present,\u201d Torres said Thursday. \u201cThat does not mean there may not still be cancer someplace else in my body. … That was certainly a great find. And a good place to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torres joined KMPH as an anchor in 2006. It was a return at the station, where he had worked as a general assignment reporter in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Before coming back to Fresno, he was in Raleigh, North Carolina as a morning show anchor for the NBC station. He also produced and hosted several public affairs shows, including one aimed at the state\u2019s Hispanic population.<\/p>\n

ABC30 loses two on-air personalities<\/p>\n

The retirement isn\u2019t the only recent shakeup in Fresno\u2019s TV news landscape.<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, ABC30 sports anchor Stephen Hicks announced Friday will be his last broadcast with the Action News team. He is leaving, after eight years, for Los Angeles to be with his soon-to-be wife.<\/p>\n

He joins Gabe Ferris, who announced he\u2019s leaving the station after a two-year stint at a city hall reporter. Ferris is heading to Chicago, where he will work for the owned-and-operated ABC 7. He will remain on-air into July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The idea was always that Monty Torres would return to KMPH. That was the message when he took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[4900,152567,112,114,113,86704,28892],"class_list":["post-376840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-cancer","tag-evening-news","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-kmph","tag-lung-cancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}