Not every market has one, that reporter whose stories seem more like long poems than news reports.
Minneapolis-St. Paul has Boyd Huppert. The Pioneer Press has a story about the reporter for NBC affiliate KARE who was recently awarded two Edward R. Murrow awards to bring his total to ten.
Derrick Hinds, communications director at the Radio Television Digital News Association, which presents the Awards, told the Pioneer Press, “I’ve been around the organization for about 20 years. I don’t know of anybody who has a record like that. Certainly nobody in recent memory.”
Numerous stories have made an impact on KARE news director Jane Helmke during her 31 years at the station, but there are only a handful of specific lines she can recite. She has no problem recalling her favorite from Huppert that opened a 1997 story he did on the devastating Red River flood: “On the Lord’s day in Granite Falls, life along the river went to hell.”
“It was excellent,” Helmke said. “You could see it all in that one moment.”
Even after all the prestigious honors, Huppert isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s “extremely competitive,” she said, and it’s not unusual for him to be at the station until 3 a.m. making sure one of his trademark feature stories is “exactly right.”
“He doesn’t shy away from difficult stories,” Helmke said. “He still loves to cover important breaking news. And he still works on the desk on daily stories. I think having that breadth of experience is why his work is so good.
Huppert has worked at KARE since 1996. This year he won in the Feature Reporting category for “Neighborhood of Love” and in the Writing category.
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