Abby Smith
Abby Smith is Digital Director at KRDO13 and a reporter who turns live events, official announcements and daily developments into clear, accessible coverage across digital and radio platforms. Her beat includes automotive and motorsports, most visibly through her work on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and she extends that approach to crime, public safety, politics, city government and community life. She draws on experience producing investigative documentaries to give her work a straightforward, factual tone that serves audiences looking for quick, reliable updates.
Pikes Peak Hill Climb and automotive coverage
Smith’s most distinctive work sits at the intersection of motorsports and live broadcast coverage, centered on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. In her piece inviting audiences to “Listen live as the Pikes Peak Hill Climb unfolds on KRDO13 Radio,” she lays out how KRDO13 News and KRDO News Radio will deliver real-time race updates, weather shifts and breaking developments from the course as drivers tackle the mountain.
The article emphasizes the race’s status as a world‑class motorsports event and guides readers toward radio and streaming options, showing her focus on connecting automotive coverage with practical ways to follow the action. Within the broader Hill Climb package, KRDO13 positions its news and radio teams around continuous coverage of drivers speeding along Pikes Peak Highway to the summit, and Smith’s role is to frame that coverage in concise, audience‑ready terms.
This mix of event promotion, live logistics and motorsport context is what sets her automotive work apart from basic race recaps.
Crime and public safety reporting
Alongside motorsports, Smith regularly covers crime and public safety incidents for KRDO NewsChannel 13. Her report on “4 Texas homicide suspects arrested by US Marshals in Northglenn” tracks a multi‑jurisdictional arrest, summarizing law enforcement actions and the status of the suspects in a straightforward, fact‑driven format. In “K9 Mako’s sharp nose leads to major drug bust in El Paso County,” she highlights a fentanyl alert and the role of a sheriff’s office K‑9 in uncovering a significant narcotics case. Both stories focus on what happened, who was involved and what authorities say, reflecting a pattern of concise public safety coverage rather than extended narrative or commentary. Across these pieces she treats crime and enforcement as part of the daily information stream, giving readers essential details on arrests and seizures without embellishment.
Politics, government and national coverage
Smith’s bylines also span politics, public policy and national security stories that demand quick, accurate updates. In a co‑bylined article on a presidential address about the war with Iran, she helps deliver a rapid summary of the president’s remarks and the latest developments for KRDO’s audience.
Her coverage of a Colorado family fighting to bring Stephen Hubbard home after Russia releases another American focuses on the family’s ongoing efforts and the broader diplomatic context, keeping the story tightly framed around verified developments.
She contributes to election coverage through candidate profiles like the piece on Jeff Peckman in the 2026 state governor race, outlining the candidate’s background and long‑running involvement in public issues in a structured, biography‑style format. On the city level, her article about officials holding a press conference on security and investments in the S. Nevada Corridor details an ordinance allocating $458,000 from the Retail Marijuana Tax Fund for security enhancements, anchoring the story in specific policy decisions and funding figures. Taken together, these pieces show a reporter comfortable shifting from national‑level events to local governance while maintaining a clean, explanatory style.
Community features, fitness and school spirit
Beyond hard news, Smith is a regular presence in KRDO’s community‑oriented and lifestyle coverage.
Her “Summer Strong: Debunking common fitness myths” article works with KRDO13’s fitness expert to break down widely circulated gym myths, presenting short, practical explanations that are easy for readers to apply. In “Pep Rally Report: Mesa Ridge and Discovery Canyon show their spirit before the game,” she captures high‑school pep rallies ahead of local sports matchups, noting the KRDO13 Pep Rally Report franchise and its sponsorship while focusing on student enthusiasm and school spirit.
She also writes staff and team features for the station, introducing newsroom personnel such as meteorologist Steve Roldan and reporter Mina Ramirez in brief profiles that explain their roles and experience to viewers. These assignments, combined with her digital leadership role on KRDO13’s team, underline a broader through‑line in her work: presenting the people and events that shape the station’s community in plain language, whether the subject is a fitness segment, a school pep rally or a new face on the news team.
Digital leadership and investigative background
Smith holds a digital leadership position within KRDO13, serving as Digital Director and a member of the station’s Digital Team.
In that capacity she not only writes but steers online presentation of news, live streams and feature content, which aligns with her prominent role in Hill Climb coverage and other cross‑platform projects. Her professional background includes work on investigative documentaries earlier in her career, giving her a foundation in long‑form, evidence‑driven storytelling even as her current output is dominated by concise daily pieces. This combination of investigative training, digital leadership and hands‑on reporting across automotive events, crime, politics and community features defines how she approaches stories and distinguishes her from a beat reporter focused on a single narrow topic.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aarian Marshall
Aarian Marshall is a staff writer at WIRED who stands out for covering how cars, software, and policy collide. She writes on transportation systems and cities, from the auto industry to broader mobility systems. Before WIRED, she reported on cities and urban policy for The Atlantic’s CityLab. Her beat runs from electric vehicles, fuel prices, tariffs, and car-buying decisions to autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and software-defined cars. She reports with a systems view, linking policy shifts, technical failures, and urban life to what happens on streets, in repair shops, and at the pump.
Adele Peters
Adele Peters covers climate solutions and other structural problems as design and policy questions, focusing on what can work in practice. She is a senior writer at Fast Company, where she reports on energy, transportation, housing, materials, agriculture, corporate sustainability, and social impact. Her stories examine climate technologies, grid resilience, electric vehicles, renewable energy, modular construction, homelessness, affordable housing, compostable materials, regenerative agriculture, and ecosystem restoration. She looks at whether projects can scale, their real-world constraints, and their measurable effects. She interviews political and philanthropic leaders, startup founders, and climate tech entrepreneurs, anchoring stories in what is being built and tested. She has written more than 3,000 stories and contributed to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century and State of Housing Design 2023.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung writes engineering-led coverage of Chinese electric vehicles and performance cars for CarNewsChina. He focuses on new energy vehicles, battery systems, powertrains, electric platforms, high-end domestic brands, and track-ready models, and he explains technical details in plain language for non-specialist readers. His reporting treats new models as hardware and systems stories, with precise figures on range, battery capacity, chassis layout, motor outputs, weight, and acceleration. He also covers the Chinese auto industry’s finances and technology roadmap, including sector profits, vehicle volumes, and solid-state battery timelines. His background in Electrical and Computer Engineering shows in the way he writes about vehicle electronics and battery management.
Al Pefley
Al Pefley is a television news reporter for CBS12 News whose work centers on how laws, law enforcement and local decisions shape everyday life for drivers and other residents. He reports in a general assignment role but returns often to transportation, public safety and pocketbook issues, treating driving as a point where policy, disability and policing intersect. His coverage includes driver-focused laws, fuel and tax policy, crime, policing and internal affairs findings, with a consistent focus on accountability and concrete consequences for people’s wallets, safety and trust in institutions. He explains county gas tax debates, campaign positions on teacher pay, property crime and retail theft in short, clear segments. Pefley works primarily on the scene, using live or recorded field reporting and interview-driven pieces to show what happened, why it matters and what comes next.