HOT PURSUIT

Over the years I have been fortunate to forge many friendships, but not many of them come close to the one I developed with a colleague of mine from KAAL-TV in Austin back in the early 1990s.

Bob Walters and I worked as reporters at KAAL covering news across southern Minnesota. While we worked together for only about three years, we have remained friends to this day.

Our professional paths have gone different directions since those early years of our careers. He is now the news director of the CBS affiliate TV station in Waco, Texas managing a news department of about 30 employees.

Last week I went to visit Bob in Waco. I always find it fun to hang out at a TV station, especially since it’s something I started doing back when I was a teenager visiting reporters and anchors at Twin Cities stations. And, of course, TV is where I started my journalism career.

This fall Bob took on an additional role as an adjunct professor in the journalism department at Baylor University, a nationally ranked Christian university where more than 15,000 students attend.

Bob brought me in as a special speaker to one of his journalism classes last week to give students an overview of the print industry and my career. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk about some of the great things happening at the Steele County Times.

Besides highlighting some of our successes over the past year, which I have covered at different times in this column and elsewhere in the newspaper, I also spoke about the value of community newspapers and how newspapers are not dead contrary to what some want you to believe. I think it piqued interest with late teenagers and early 20 year olds who have grown up in the electronic world of social media and gadgets.

I sensed a bit of surprise from the students when I shared with them how our readership has grown by nearly 50% in the past two years. I stressed to them the importance of newspapers and really any form of media to maintaining our democracy, in addition to keeping communities informed of what’s happening around them.

Part of their class assignment is to write a story about me based on what I spoke about. It will be interesting to see what they come away with from the presentation.

Bob has a gift of teaching and connecting with people. He has trained and mentored countless young journalists over the past 25 years at the TV stations he has worked at. And now he’s adding college students in the classroom to the mix.

I was fortunate to play a tiny role in shaping the way young adults view the media. No matter what they end up doing with their lives, I hope I was able to give them just a little something to think about and ponder about journalism.

I also met with Bruce Gietzen, who is the director of student media at Baylor. He showed me some of the great programs they have going at the college to help students going into journalism, public relations and new media.

Last week’s venture illustrates to me how our colleges and universities are in good hands with people like Bob and Bruce going in hot pursuit of mentoring young people with the greater good of helping us all stay informed.