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Presented to
Jack Hansen
Jack Hansen
| The annual A.H. Pankow Award honors a member
of South Dakota’s print or broadcast media whose coverage and promotion of the
state’s visitor industry is unequaled. Jack Hansen grew up in
neighboring Minnesota, born in the metropolis of Minneapolis. It was here that he began to
see a future in journalism. After attending Dartmouth College and the University of
Minnesota, Hansen jumped into the fire in the exploding Minneapolis television market.
He landed with the super station WCCO and spent the next 19 years
expanding their market. In 1979, Hansen left WCCO for a private business venture, opening
his own television production and syndication company. |
| Over the years, Hansen ventured
into South Dakota. Close family friends brought him into western South Dakota and for 30
years his Chesapeake Bay retrievers never let him miss a pheasant opener in eastern South
Dakota near Ipswich. |
Hansen shares his appreciation of South
Dakota at the awards ceremony. |
| But in 1997, his journalism blood was
fidgeting againand he took on another major project. This endeavor brought him permanently
to South Dakota to manage a television station. With 40 years of television experience
behind him, Hansen knew what television audiences wanted … they wanted hometown news
and they wanted coverage of the good things happening in their communities. They
didn’t want hometown dirt. His strategy: take the news crew on the road, visit local
festivals, explore events, interview characters and even broadcast live from the town. The
station’s first series was called "Our Towns." In
1999, under his direction, the station covered events from Vermillion to Groton and from
Garretson to Murdo. Crews spent nearly 40 days in the field showcasing rural South Dakota
with tourism often playing a major role in their broadcasts. They covered everything from
Crazy Horse Memorial to the economic impact of South Dakota’s pheasant season.
Charging into the new millennium his station promises to continue its pledge of
"Putting Dakota First." |
Governor Bill Janklow expresses his appreciation and congratulations
when presenting Hansen with the 2000 Pankow Award. |
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