When I worked at KLAS in Las Vegas, I had the chance to work with a number of talented photojournalists. I was blessed to be partnered (primarily) with four of them over about a 3 year period; Brian Podner, Mark Mutchler, Kyle Zuelke and David Suarez.
This picture was taken in January of 2006. David Suarez and I turned a New York City hotel room into a makeshift bureau for a story we were covering for KLAS in Las Vegas. It was a whirlwind day.
I was paired with David Suarez for most of my last year at KLAS. He had come to Las Vegas from El Paso, Texas. He was an extremely talented and hard-working photojournalist. I knew from my VERY FIRST DAY of working with him that he and I were going to make an awesome team.
We were assigned that first day to do a story on the Las Vegas heat. It was in the Summertime and I think the high temperature that day was forecast to be 117 degrees. By the time he and I went out to start working on the story, it was already 112.
We caught up with a city street crew who was doing some asphalt patching work and we focused our story on them. Could there be anything more miserable? It’s already 112 and your shoveling out asphalt that is also hundreds of degrees? Ugh.
We turned the story and it aired on that night’s newscast. We thought nothing of our work until we came in the next morning and found out our story had been run on the CBS Morning News. We had worked together for 1 day and our work went to network. From that moment on, he and I worked almost exclusively together.
This is a picture of David Suarez outside of NBC studios in New York City. David and I worked on a project in January of 2006 in NYC. We did a lot of work and we had a great time. Thanks David for a ton of memories.
What is interesting is that David and I are about as opposite as night and day. The chief difference, and what ultimately would bond us as friends, is our cultural background. He is Latino and grew up on the Texas/Mexico border. I am a kid that was born and raised in the heart of Iowa. But we both valued hard work and quality and it showed. We ended up being one of the news crews at KLAS that would always be dispatched to the big, breaking stories. The assignment desk knew if you could get Brian and David to the story, you would GET the story.
We were pretty crazy. We would shoot stories and then go to the nearest Burger King and set up shop for a while. We would order lunch and I would write the stories and when I was done, David would bring a laptop editor into the Burger King and edit our stories. Yes, we turned fast food restaurants into newsrooms all across the Las Vegas Valley.
This is the "Casa Don Juan" restaurant in Las Vegas. It was the site of many Allen-Suarez lunches. (Photo courtesy: Las Vegas Sun)
I remember one day we were having lunch at a Taco Bell near the campus of UNLV. I looked at Suarez and said “This is really good Mexican food!”.
I thought he was going to choke to death, while would have freaked me out because I don’t know the Heimlich Manuever.
He then said “This isn’t real Mexican food!” and the next day he introduced me to Casa Don Juan. It is an authentic Mexican restaurant located near downtown Las Vegas. So authentic, you have to order your food in Spanish. Really. After we found Casa Don Juan, we ate there almost exclusively. Sometimes just the two us, but most times with a whole bunch of KLAS’ers who we had turned on to the place.
Mi y mi hermano David Suarez in la ciudad de Nueva York in Enero de 2006.
Some of the stories about Suarez and I are legendary and still talked about at KLAS in Las Vegas.
There were the mornings where Suarez and I would look at the number of assignments we would receive for that day and just begin saying out loud “No! No way! That is too many stories! Packages at 4 AND 4:30!?”.
There was the time we went to Reno for a story and everything that could go wrong did go wrong (satellite truck failed, our equipment was different from the Reno station who agreed to help us, we were supposed to complete three stories and we got ONE done). That night, at the Reno Airport, I may have had some drinks that weren’t ice-cold milk. David had to walk me through security and onto the plane and get me into my seat.
There was the time where David and I were covering severe thunderstorms moving through Las Vegas and the newsroom wanted us to put the mast up on the live truck and go live…with tons of lightning in the area. David got on the 2-way radio and said “I’m not putting the mast up! If I do you’re going to have a dead beaner and a dead gringo!”. I almost laughed myself into unconsciousness.
I remember one Summer night where David and I had worked a double shift and that week we had already been put through the wringer. In a parking lot before a live shot, David may have told me he was sick of working with me and I may have told him that he could file his complaint in an area where the sun does not shine at any time.
The man I love like a brother, David Suarez, and his fiancée Nichole.
Suarez is a good man. He and I would spend some of our time together talking about the rigors of broadcast news; how the hours are long and how sometimes you are putting yourself in direct danger to get a story (like the time he and I did an 11PM live shot in North Las Vegas about a gang shooting..as cars were driving by with people yelling “bang-bang” at us). He also told me how he wished he could find someone special to complete his life. Someone he could love.
David left KLAS about three years after I did and moved to Austin, Texas. And wouldn’t you know it, he did find that someone special. Her name is Nichole. David says she is his soul mate. I believe him. I have never seen him happier or heard him sound happier. I am grateful that he has found real, lasting love.
Tomorrow, David and his fiancée will take their vows in Austin, Texas. I wish I could be there to see it. I will not be. As with the rigors of TV news, I will be in Pierre covering the inauguration of South Dakota Governor-elect Dennis Daugaard. But my heart will be in Texas with a guy I came to depend on both personally and professionally.
David, le deseo nada más que la felicidad en su nueva vida con Nichole. Quiero que tengas la vida que siempre has soñado, el que la vida y me gustaría hablar en Las Vegas. Usted ha encontrado el amor verdadero, sino el tesoro y cuidarlo. Es raro. Te amo hermano. Sé bueno.
David Suarez at work behind the camera for KLAS in Las Vegas. Suarez would always tease me and say "You know, for a white guy, you speak pretty good Spanish." My usual reply; "Yeah, it's even better than yours."
