When it came time for Val to unpack her suitcase and come home from the road, she settled down on the Assignment Desk at Channel 5. For almost three decades, she ran crews, chased reporters and stared down producers from behind her bank of phones, radios and mics. For the past several years, she has also produced City Desk with Dick Kay.

An astute political observer, Val was on the job the day Richard J. Daley was elected mayor and the day he died in office. During her watch, a Bilandic, a Byrne, a Washington, a Sawyer and another Daley would occupy the fifth floor of City Hall.

Val and television news came of age together. Back before the digital newsroom, there was film. Editors used glue and cameras were bigger than today’s portable satellite packs. Wire machines and typewriters clattered. The newsroom hummed with urgency – rushing tape to the airport, racing to City Hall, running to another story. There were deadlines. There was a sense of importance. And there was Val, as irrepressible as the NBC peacock, often inscrutable, sometimes skeptical, always curious – her impeccable nose for news sniffing out stories, improbable plots and political intrigues for the last half century.