Marcelino Benito joined the KHOU 11 News team in February 2014. But it's not Marcelino's first time in Houston. Marcelino was born here, graduated from Cypress Falls High School, left for a few years and came back as fast as he could.
Most recently, Marcelino was named Best TV Reporter in 2016 by the Texas Associated Press. During his three-plus years at KHOU, Marcelino has won two Lone Star Emmy Awards for general assignment reporting and has been honored with first place Texas Associated Press awards in back-to-back years for deadline editing.
Marcelino has covered major assignments, such as Pope Francis' trip to the U.S-Mexico border and has traveled overseas to Germany to report on the future of Houston's iconic Astrodome.
Marcelino returned to Houston from the desert in Tucson, Ariz. He spent two years at KGUN-TV, where he covered stories like the Yarnell Hill tragedy that claimed the life of 19 firefighters. It was the largest firefighting tragedy in the United States since Sept. 11. Marcelino also broke several stories on the killing of Genna Ayup, a local mother shot by her boyfriend. The shooter ultimately never faced justice thanks to a loophole in Arizona law, but Marcelino's continuing coverage helped eliminate that loophole in Tucson.
His work in Southern Arizona earned him two regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and two Rocky Mountain Emmy nominations for feature reporting and his reporting along the U.S-Mexico border.
In Tucson, Marcelino also worked at KMSB-TV as a weekend anchor/reporter. He reported from University of Arizona Medical Center the day former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was nearly killed in the Jan. 8 shooting mass shooting. Marcelino got his on air start at WLNS in Lansing, Michigan. He even reported overseas in Madrid, Spain, for El Mundo, a major Spanish newspaper.
Marcelino is a proud graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
In his spare time, Marcelino enjoys working out, trying new restaurants, checking out new movies, hitting the courts for hours of tennis and traveling the world. In March of 2017, Marcelino got engaged in Rio de Janeiro and plans to marry his beautiful fiancee later this year.