Renán Almendárez Coello (born November 18, 1953), also known as El Cucuy De La Mañana, is a Honduran-American radio personality.

Career

His program is carried on several affiliate stations across the United States. For six years, "El Cucuy" was the most-listened-to voice on L.A. radio, surpassing the ratings of

Rick Dees Rigdon Osmond Dees III (born March 14, 1950), best known as Rick Dees, is an American entertainer, radio personality, comedian, actor, and voice artist, best known for his internationally syndicated radio show '' The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Coun ...

and

Howard Stern Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American broadcaster and media personality. He is best known for his radio show, ''The Howard Stern Show'', which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1 ...

. Almendárez hosted the morning show on

KLAX-FM KLAX-FM (97.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is an American commercial radio station located in East Los Angeles, California, broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles area. It is owned by Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS). KLAX-FM airs a regional Mexican ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and had an estimated 3,000,000 listeners. Guzman left KLAX in September 2008 in order to launch a new radio network in addition to continuing on his television program on Azteca America. KLAX is now carrying the morning show of Joaquin Garza, "El Chulo de la Manaña", from sister station

WLEY-FM WLEY-FM (107.9 MHz) is a radio station licensed to Aurora, Illinois, serving Aurora, Chicago, Naperville, Joliet and much of surrounding Northeast Illinois. Owned by Spanish Broadcasting System, it broadcasts a regional Mexican format brande ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Almendárez began working in radio at age 15. After he interviewed the then-US Ambassador to Honduras,

John Negroponte John Dimitri Negroponte (; born July 21, 1939) is an American diplomat. In 2018, he was a James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is a former J.B. and Maurice C. Shapi ...

, Negroponte arranged for a

visa Visa most commonly refers to: * Travel visa, a document that allows entry to a foreign country * Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Vi ...

and Almendárez emigrated to the U.S. He became a citizen of the United States in 2000. He is active in encouraging Latinos to vote and to take part in activism against anti-illegal immigrant legislation and sentiment, such as the 2006 Great American Boycott. He is the author of ''El Cucuy de la Mañana: My Life in Radio's Fast Lane''. He is the father of actress

Francia Raisa Francia Raisa Almendárez (born July 26, 1988) is an American actress. Raisa is known for her roles in '' Bring It On: All or Nothing'', '' The Secret Life of the American Teenager'', '' Grown-ish'', and '' How I Met Your Father''. Early life ...

and Cynthia Benson. On November 25, 2014, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Now he is working for Audiorama Comunicaciones.

El Cucuy Foundation

El Cucuy Foundation is a 501(c)(3)

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

charity serving individuals across the United States, Mexico and Central America.El Cucuy Foundation - About Us
cucuy.org; accessed August 12, 2016.

Publications

Books

*El Cucuy: En la Cumbre de la Pobreza, Autobiography, by Renan Almendarez Coello, Spanish, 2003, *El Cucuy de la Mañana, Renan Almendarez Coello, Audio CD, Spanish, 2002, *Renan Almendarez Coello, El Cucuy de la Manana, by Fernando Schiantarelli, 2002

References

External links

El Cucuy Foundation

El Cucuy
official website * Bachman, Katy, "Dream weaver: Spanish Broadcasting System is taking on the biggest Hispanic broadcaster,

Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the L ...

, by using tried-and-true general-market tactics.", ''

Mediaweek ''Mediaweek'' is an online trade website serving the Australian media industry. It provides news regarding the Australian List of newspapers in Australia, newspaper, Television in Australia, television, List of Australian radio stations, radio, ...

'', v. 14 no. 35, October 4, 2004. * Baum, Dan
"Arriba! A Latino radio scold gets out the vote
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...