Editing video for eight hours in a dark room was not how Bella Kunde thought her career in sports broadcasting would begin. The 2020 Vacaville High graduate was grateful to have a part-time job at Channel 13 in Sacramento, but she had no experience in editing and working with the lights off.
Learning to edit led to Kunde taping and editing segments to develop her skills. She often shared her clips with the folks entrusted to choose what goes on the air without expecting one would ever merit consideration. She was working out at a gym when the call came that one had made the cut.
Kunde taped and edited her interview with Vanden High quarterback Kalani McLeod last March as a dry run for producing an actual on-air segment. She thought it turned out well and so did her superiors at Channel 13. When told it would air, Kunde asked “Are you sure?” and “Are you serious?”
They were as sure about Kunde as Cecil Houston was when he first met her at a high school football game. Kunde shared clips she had taped with her phone because a Channel 13 cameraman like Houston would surely have a few tips to offer. She had no idea what Houston actually did at the station until he interviewed her for the part-time job
Houston is the director of news operations at the CBS affiliate. He hired Kunde to edit tape in a dark room because that was the only position he had available. Other stations offered her jobs in sales and marketing, but her heart was set on becoming a sports journalist – with a Bachelor of Art degree from San Diego State.
Kunde revealed her major in a text message and added “LOL.” She paid her dues at Channel 13 by editing tape and soon other opportunities came her way. Kunde produced sport segments for two newscasts in July when no one else was available. She wore a T-shirt and jeans to work for the first segment to avoid appearing in the newscast.
“There was no way they could put me on the air. I was freaking out. They threw me into the fire,” quipped Kunde, who dressed appropriately for the second newscast. After editing tape in a dark room, which was “so not my vibe,” Kunde now appears on the show “Good Day Sacramento” and covers various sporting events.
Her fear of being on air has gone the way of taping segments with her phone. Kunde does not appear in the McLeod segment, but she stepped in front of the camera in her recent segment about Vacaville wrestler Kaelena Ahrens. Kunde was impressed by Ahrens and how the senior has persevered to achieve success.
Girls wrestling was sanctioned as a sport for California high schools in 2011. Ahrens was the only girl on Vacaville’s wrestling team when she arrived in 2022 and practiced with the junior varsity boys. Other girls have followed Ahrens, who in 2024 was the first Vacaville girl to qualify for the state championships. She returned in 2025.
“She told me how hard she’s worked and how she looks after the girls. She wants them to prove they belong,” Kunde said of Ahrens, who is one of three Vacaville girls to qualify for the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters tournament at Adventist Health Arena in Stockton on Friday and Saturday. The others are Jenna Patzer and Annlie Doss.
Ahrens won the 120-pound title at the section Central Regional tournament last Saturday at Tokay High in Lodi. She won four of her five matches by pin and the other by a 17-2 technical fall. Ahrens wasted no time in the finals by flattening Rodriguez’s Mikayla Rayrao in 2:23. The total time of Ahrens’ first three pins was 3:08.
Names of the wrestlers who placed at the state tournament adorn the walls of Vacaville’s wrestling room. Ahrens plans to add hers and will need to place in the top eight at her weight to be on the podium. That would be another first for Ahrens, who can blame Kunde for for being nicknamed “Hollywood” by her teammates.
