One of the Bay Area’s most notable voices has left the airwaves. After nearly 50 years working in media, KCBS traffic anchor Kim Vestal has decided to retire.
Vestal grew up in Watsonville, east of Santa Cruz, where she would listen to the radio and enter in her diary the songs that were playing. She began her radio career at San Jose State’s college station, then was hired in 1979 to report weekend news on KLIV and KARA, serving San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley. She was the first woman at KARA to host a morning show without a co-anchor, where she worked from 1980 to 2002. Next she joined country station KBAY as a mid-afternoon personality, followed by a pivot to another country station, KRTY, which broadcast on 95.3 FM. Vestal left the station in 2017 to join KCBS, which currently broadcasts on 106.9 FM and 740 AM. When she arrived at KCBS, she learned that the job was much more challenging than she thought.
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