KARE-11's Boyd Huppert to speak at Life Connections in Willmar

Apr. 20—WILLMAR

— The featured speaker at the 2020 Life Connections event in Willmar was intended to be KARE-11's Boyd Huppert, best-known for his Land of 10,000 Stories news series. The coronavirus pandemic put a stop to that, causing the cancellation of the event for both 2020 and 2021.

Huppert was asked back in 2022, but he had to decline. He was undergoing treatment for multiple myloma, a type of blood cancer. Due to his treatments, Huppert couldn't be around large crowds.

Now, three years after he was suppose to take the stage, Huppert is coming to

Life Connections

.

"Here we are, finally," Huppert said.

Huppert will speak at 10:30 a.m. Friday, April 21, at the Willmar Civic Center. He said he plans to speak about his career, the interesting people he has met and the stories behind the stories he has been able to tell.

"Not all the interesting things make it on the air," Huppert said.

While he is now a well-known broadcast journalist, Huppert started life on a dairy farm in Wisconsin.

It was a chance weekend job at the local radio station when he was 16 that set him on the journalism career path. He was hired to man the board on Sunday afternoons, between innings and quarters of Milwaukee Brewers and Green Bay Packer games. He ended up going to the University of Wisconsin River Falls and interned at a few television stations, including KTSP in the Twin Cities.

"There was so much energy and excitement in that room," Huppert said of the station newsroom. " I just loved that environment the moment I walked in."

Huppert worked at television stations in Wausau, Wisconsin; Omaha, Nebraska; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin before joining KARE-11 in 1996. Both Huppert and his wife, Shari, wanted to live in the Twin Cities, so they and their children would be close to family. It was also a good place for a TV journalist to settle down.

"The Twin Cities is a great TV market with really good, nationally recognized TV stations," Huppert said.

In 2004, while driving to an assignment with KARE-11 photographer Jonathan Malat, he and Huppert brainstormed the idea that would become Boyd Huppert's Land of 10,000 Stories. It would give Huppert the opportunity to tell interesting, heartwarming and unique feature stories from across the state. At first, it was just a once-in-a-while segment. Then, in 2011, the station made it a weekly feature.

So far, Huppert has told more than 500 stories. Luckily he is at no risk of ever reaching 10,000, so there are plenty of stories to continue to find.

To celebrate the segment's 15th anniversary in 2019, KARE had every single story put on

YouTube

. Some of those first stories were still on video tapes, stored at the KARE-11 station. They were digitized and joined the more recent clips on the channel.

"If it aired under the 10,000 Stories banner, it is on that YouTube page," Huppert said.

In addition to his on-air job, Huppert has also started teaching and mentoring the upcoming generations of reporter. He believes it better serves the audience when the reporters are well-trained and able to do their jobs at a high level.

"That is how I learned, I had some great mentors growing up," and now it is his turn to be the mentor, Huppert said. "I am passing along the things they taught me."

Huppert has definitely had a successful career.

He has collected 20 National Edward R. Murrow Awards, a national Emmy for feature reporting, 128 regional Emmys, the Scripps Howard Award, multiple Sigma Delta Chi and National Headliner Awards and is in the Emmy Silver Circle for career contributions to the television industry, according to his KARE-11 bio page.

Just this past January, Huppert received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association. Other recipients have included Tom Brokaw, Andy Rooney, Robin Roberts and Bob Simon.

"I look at that list of names and I don't even consider myself in the same ballpark, much less the same section, as people like that," Huppert said.

While Huppert loves his job on TV, it doesn't give him a lot of chances to speak with viewers. This is why he enjoys attending events such as Life Connections as it gives him a chance to meet viewers face to face.

"People are just so nice," Huppert said, adding the best compliment he can get is someone telling him they love his stories.

Being a journalist, and specifically the Land of 10,000 Stories, has given Huppert the chance to tell stories and experiences things most people don't. It is a duty he is honored to have.

"Journalism is a front row seat to all sorts of interesting things. I love the notion of going out and making something and sharing it," Huppert said. "I get to try and bring that sense of wonder or surprise or learning something. I get to take that and share it with other people. That is the greatest privilege we have as a journalist."