Minnesota Prairie Roots

IF YOU’VE EVER READ the children’s picture book series, If You Give A… by Laura Numeroff, you understand the premise of how one thing leads to another. In her book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, for example, Numeroff writes about a mouse who, if given a cookie, will then want a glass of milk and then a straw and then…

That domino thought train followed for me after I heard a news report about KARE 11 TV anchor Randy Shaver’s induction into the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame over the weekend. I remembered a photo I’d taken of a Randy Shaver trading card during a stop at Hopefull Treasures/Wilker’s Antiques in March. The antique shop is housed in an aged building in the small town of Hope just off Interstate 35 south of Owatonna.

Recalling that image, I opened my photo files. Then I Googled the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame. There I found Shaver’s bio and current portrait along with those of four other 2021 inductees. Shaver has been with KARE 11 since 1983, working in positions ranging from reporter to sports director to evening news anchor.

I then began scrolling through the 2001-2018 Hall of Fame Honorees, looking for familiar names. And I found lots of them—Cyndy Brucato, Herb Carneal, Ralph Jon Fritz, Halsey Hall and, then, pause, Brad Nessler. I clicked on his bio. Nessler and I attended journalism school together at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He graduated a year before me, his focus in broadcasting and mine in news editorial/print journalism. Professionally, this small town boy from St. Charles in southeastern Minnesota excelled. Today he works as the CBS play-by-play sportscaster for the Southeastern Conference in football and basketball. I remember him, from my college days, as an all-around nice guy.

Once I finished scrolling through the Hall of Fame honorees, I then shifted to reading about The Pavek Museum in St. Louis Park which initiated this broadcasting award. I’d never heard of the museum. The 12,000-plus square foot museum houses antique radios, televisions and broadcasting equipment, most from the collection of Joe Pavek.

Well, then, who is Joe Pavek? He was an amateur radio operator and electronics instructor at Dunwoody Institute. And a collector.

The Pavek Museum opened in 1988 to preserve and present the history of electronic communication and provide a learning environment for those interested in the science of electromagnetism and sound, according to the museum website. That educational facet includes a Broadcast Workshop for kids to learn about the history of electronics communications while creating a 1960s style radio broadcast.

So there you go. If you give a writer a media report, she will remember a photo which will lead her to a website and then to…

© Copyright 2021 Audrey Kletscher Helbling