Saturday, April 4, 1998 | 4:35 a.m.
Deborah Levy, Las Vegas 1 co-anchor, is not worried about acclimating to the news environment of the world's entertainment capital.
She comes here from Fort Myers, Fla., where she worked for three years as an investigative reporter and anchor for WINK-TV, a CBS affiliate.
Fort Myers, on the Gulf Coast of south Florida, is one of the state's largest tourist areas, and Levy covered numerous tourism-related issues.
"My last big story was on the taxicab industry," the 30-year-old Levy said. "I discovered that taxis were not regulated. I found drivers without licenses, without registrations and guys selling drugs out of the backs of cars."
Today legislators in Lee County, where Fort Myers is located, are drafting laws to regulate the taxicab industry.
A native of Los Angeles, Levy graduated with honors in 1990 from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in political science with an emphasis on international relations.
Even before graduation, Levy began working in one of the nation's largest news markets, as an assignment editor at KTLA-TV, an independent station in Los Angeles.
"It was very educational working in the the nation's second-largest city," Levy said.
A year later, Levy joined the staff of KRCG, a CBS affiliate in Jefferson City, Mo., as weekend anchor and political reporter.
"Jefferson City is the capital of Missouri, and I was doing a lot of stories on the state Legislature," said Levy, who went to Fort Myers after her stint in Jefferson City.
When she's not working in journalism, Levy -- a fitness buff -- spends a lot of time exercising and teaching aerobics. She also volunteers for the Ronald McDonald House. While in Fort Myers, she was a member of the local board of directors of the organization, which provides accommodations for family members of hospitalized children.
"I'm very involved with the Ronald McDonald House," said Levy, who explained that as a child she had a family member who was hospitalized "and there was not a house like that for us."
Because family is very important to Levy, she is very happy about relocating to Las Vegas.
Levy's parents and sisters live in Southern California, and her grandmother, Bert Raskin, lives in Las Vegas. Bert is a former pan dealer at the Sahara hotel-casino.
"She's in her 80s, and now I can visit her all the time," Levy said with a smile. "It seems I already have a fan club composed of my grandmother and all her pan friends. They play pan and bridge every day."
About Las Vegas 1, Levy said, "It's a great idea. I think we have resources that none of the other TV stations have, and it's going to work out well."
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