Lina Robles, a longtime radio personality known for her broadcasts on La Poderosa 96.7 FM, recently died unexpectedly at her home in Palm Desert. She was 62.
For more than two decades, her voice traveled across the Coachella Valley’s airwaves each morning, reaching families starting their day, farmworkers heading into the fields, teachers driving to school and everyday listeners who came to rely on her not just for information, but for connection.
She was born Feb. 8, 1964, in Yuma, Arizona, to Cosme and Martha Robles and was raised in Mexicali. She gave birth to her daughter, Nadya Kallen, in 1984 and her son, Iván Kallen, in 1986, raising them in Mexicali and later Calexico.
Robles died March 27, and her cause of death has not been disclosed.
In addition to her two children, she is survived by her son-in-law, Daniel Romero; her daughter-in-law, Zaira Kallen; and her three granddaughters, Nadya Romero-Kallen, Ximena Kallen and Leia Kallen.
A ‘powerful’ voice listeners turned to
On air, Robles delivered news and traffic updates. But listeners also called into the station when they needed help, like searching for missing relatives, asking for support or trying to reach someone who might be listening.
She made space for them and answered those calls herself.
“Our job in the news industry obviously relies upon being of service to the community,” said David González, a meteorologist with N+ Univision 34 in Los Angeles. “She was community. She was a person that not only entertained listeners, but went above and beyond to assist them.”
González met Robles after arriving in the valley to work for KUNA and Noticias Telemundo 15 in 2014. They worked together in the same building in Thousand Palms — the newsroom on one end, the radio station on the other — but her presence was immediate.
“The first person that approached me was actually Lina. She just said, ‘Anything you need, I’m here,’ and I thought that was the kindest thing,” he said. “When she introduced herself, she didn’t say she was the local radio jockey of the number one news station in the desert for Spanish listeners.”
When González asked others about her role, he was humbled to learn that someone so highly respected had shown a young journalist support. Robles’ presence, he said, felt larger than life.
“She was the voice of the entire community. She really lived up to it. She was ‘la poderosa,’ the powerful one,” he said. “(The community) woke up listening to her and used her as this vessel to better their own lives. I didn’t know anyone else like her in the valley. I still don’t know anyone like her.”
Robles’ voice became iconic in another way. She was warm, steady and instantly recognizable. Some listeners affectionately referred to her as “la voz sexy de la radio.”
Marco Revuelta, a former multimedia journalist with Telemundo 15 who now lives in Texas, said that the trust she built came from years of consistently connecting with the community. Yet she was more than a comforting voice, he said, but a trusted one people could rely on.
“If it came out of Lina Robles’ mouth, people believed it,” Revuelta said.
A career rooted in service, humility and generosity
Radio was not where Robles likely expected to end up.
She was previously an accountant when she pursued an opportunity at KQVO in Calexico, her daughter said — a move that would define the rest of her life. Robles joined the station in 2000, producing and hosting a morning show while covering press conferences and interviewing artists across the border.
In December 2005, she joined La Poderosa, co-hosting “El Show del Greñas” with Adolfo Iñiguez and helping build it into the Coachella Valley’s top-rated Spanish-language morning program, blending news, humor and live listener calls into the broadcast.
Behind the microphone, her day began long before listeners tuned in.
For years, she woke around 4 a.m. to read, translate, confirm and prepare stories, delivering updates throughout the show. She rarely missed work and held herself to a high standard.
Robles used her platform to amplify fundraising efforts through the station’s partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, helping raise over $2.5 million to support the fight against pediatric cancer over the course of her career.
In one of her final public posts on Facebook, she marked what would be her last year participating in the station’s annual radiothon to benefit St. Jude. She was known for being the first one to pick up the phones and the last to leave.
“For me, it is the 21st year and the last,” she wrote in Spanish, encouraging listeners to become “angels of hope.”
During the early pandemic, her work took on new urgency. Robles helped connect reporters with families affected by COVID-19 by sharing contacts, passing along stories and making sure critical information reached Spanish-speaking communities that had been heavily impacted.
“She wanted people to know what was going on,” Revuelta said.
Her support extended in smaller ways, too. When food was brought into the news station, Revuelta said, she would text him to come by and would often save him a plate. For a young journalist trying to get by, it was a gesture that made a difference.
González, too, recalled that same sense of care — a motherly presence to those around her. It’s an instinct her daughter, Nadya, described as a tendency to give more than what was expected, even when she didn’t have to.
“Quería dar de más,” she said, meaning Robles always wanted to give more.
A long-overdue recognition
Robles was one of five journalists inducted into the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation’s Media Hall of Fame on Feb. 24, an honor recognizing her impact on local media and the community she served.
Her daughter, Nadya, said Robles called her, crying tears of joy, when she learned she would be inducted.
“From the beginning, she knew she deserved it,” Nadya said. “She was like, ‘I’ve been working for so many years, and now that I’m retiring, this is great.'”
A video tribute shown before she took the stage highlighted more than two decades of her work, her bond with listeners and how she used her platform to share and support the work of local organizations, like the Galilee Center in Mecca.
When she was introduced, the crowd rose in a standing ovation, with colleagues and family capturing the moment on their phones. Though she had told her daughter she felt nervous, Robles showed no sign of it as she took the stage, her excitement quickly taking over.
“Ay ay ay,” Robles said, eliciting laughter from the crowd as she stepped up to the microphone.
“Everything was really beautiful that day. She was super happy,” Nadya said. “It’s one of the last memories that I have from her, so that makes me happy, too.”
A final broadcast
Weeks later, on March 6, Robles returned to the studio at La Poderosa for the last time.
Families, friends and coworkers spilled from the recording booth into the hallway as they recorded her final broadcast before she entered retirement. When she signed off, her loved ones hugged her one by one, each presenting her with a single red rose as they wished her well.
One of the last photos Robles posted on her Facebook page was an image of her granddaughter, Ximena, lifting her framed portrait from the wall at the radio station on her final day of work. That same day, Ximena shared a few words about her grandmother in Spanish, calling her “la mejor persona de mi corazon,” the best person in her heart.
“I could see from these past few weeks that she was loved by so many people, so she really deserved all that love,” Nadya, her daughter, said.
In an interview that day with Noticias Telemundo 15, Robles reflected on a saying she carried throughout her career.
“Yo tengo un dicho que dice, ‘Yo vengo a trabajar, no a socializar — y si ya resultas con amistades, eso ya es una gran ganancia.’ Yo me llevo muchos,” she said in Spanish, meaning she came to work, not to socialize, but that the friendships she made along the way were a real bonus — and that she takes many with her.
A life filled with music
Outside of the studio, Robles found joy in the simple moments — music, friendship and time spent with those closest to her.
She especially loved rock en español, often filling the family home with bands like Maná, a Mexican rock band. One song in particular, “El Reloj Cucú,” held special meaning. Their ballad of a child mourning his father’s death — the loneliness and enduring love — reminded Robles of her own late father, whom she cherished deeply, her daughter said.
Nadya had even bought tickets to take her mom to see Maná at the Acrisure Arena later this year as a retirement gift — a surprise she never got the chance to give her.
Her love of music carried into her friendships as well.
Toni Romero, one of her closest friends, said Robles was the kind of friend who checked in often, remembered details and followed up on what mattered.
They spoke nearly every day, sometimes about work, sometimes about small frustrations, sometimes just to laugh. But despite being widely known due to her radio personality, Robles wasn’t someone who always needed to be the center of attention.
“A lot of people knew her from the radio, but Lina, she cared about everybody,” said Romero, who is no relation to Robles’ son-in-law. “She was a good friend.”
Even in a crowd, Robles stood out, including Desert Trip in 2016. The rock festival — featuring artists they had grown up listening to, like Neil Young and Paul McCartney — felt like an experience they couldn’t miss, and the two made sure to go. But for the uninitiated, the walk from the parking lot to the festival grounds at the Empire Polo Club is a long one.
“Out of nowhere, a guy comes out and says, ‘Hey, La Poderosa! You guys want a ride?'” Romero recalled. “He was like, “Lina, it’s so good to see you.’ She didn’t know who he was, but he just knew who she was.”
They took him up on the offer — and just like that, they were bouncing along in a tractor headed straight to the front of the festival grounds.
“When we were getting out, I was like, ‘Lina, you don’t have a friend that will take us back to our car?” Romero said with a laugh.
Robles was so happy to be at Desert Trip, Romero said, that she charged a beer to her credit card as a keepsake of the moment.
They shared a range of outings, from watching Nacho Bustillos perform at the Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella, where he would sometimes dedicate songs to her, to evenings at restaurants, where $20 could bring a song to their table. And one day, Robles decided to splurge.
“She goes, ‘You know what, I just got my taxes, I’m going to buy me two songs,'” Romero said.
They couldn’t help but laugh as the musician came over and sang to her.
“And then after, she goes, ‘I just spent $40 for two songs. I can’t believe I paid $40 for a private concert,'” Romero said. “It was funny. We had fun everywhere we would go.”
‘She was the sunrise’
But more than anything, Robles was deeply committed to her family, raising her two children as a single mother while building her career.
“She showed her kids to be strong, to look forward. She was like an ambassador to her kids,” Romero said. “Her kids meant the world to her. She showed them to how to be courteous, how to be nice to people.”
The version of Robles known to listeners was only part of who she was. At home, her children said, she was more reserved, but just as devoted. She was strict in the ways that matters, her son Iván said, raising him and his sister to be independent while modeling a relentless work ethic.
Even when she was tired, missing work “was never an option,” he said in Spanish.
That same discipline was rooted in love. Nadya, her daughter, said her mother worked tirelessly to provide for her family, always putting her children and later her grandchildren first.
“Her example of strength and love will live on forever in our hearts,” her daughter-in-law, Zaira said, describing her as the pillar of the family.
It’s a legacy Nadya said she now carries with her, hoping to pass those same values on to her own daughter.
Robles’ retirement, Iván said, was a bittersweet moment — a long-earned rest, but also a difficult step away from a role that had long defined her.
That desire to slow down was something she shared with others as well. González recalled one of their final conversations, when she said she was looking forward to turning off her alarm and watching the sunrise for herself after two decades as the community’s “morning alarm of joy and happiness.”
“Lina was looking forward to seeing a sunrise after her retirement, not knowing that she was the sunrise and joy to so many,” he said.
Jennifer Cortez covers education in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at jennifer.cortez@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: ‘She was La Poderosa.’ Lina Robles, longtime radio host, dies at 62
Reporting by Jennifer Cortez, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
