Final Edition. Radio Superior. Countless radio documentaries, including a series on the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural Wisconsinites that garnered him an Edward R. Morrow Award in 1997 and a National Public Broadcasting Director’s Award for his coverage of the 1992 benzene spill in Douglas County, Wisconsin. A booming voice reminiscent of William Conrad (radio persona and star of the television detective series “Cannon”). A loving husband. A good son and brother. A loyal friend. A tough task master. A great teacher. One hell of a radio journalist.
These are the bits and pieces of Mike Simonson’s life that doubtlessly were emphasized at his memorial service last Saturday at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in West Duluth. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, though I did make the wake the evening before. I wasn’t a close personal friend of Mike’s, having been two years ahead of him at Denfeld (a classmate of Mike’s older brother Mark), but my interactions with Mike, from those glory days until his all-too-sudden passing, were always positive. In junior high and high school, Mike was Mark’s little brother; a round bundle of energy in contrast to his older sibling’s more deliberate and sedate style who knew more about baseball than any Denfeld alum except Fred Friedman. Mike could recall statistics concerning players from the near and distant past with ease. He also, as I recall, may have had a hand in plotting the greatest caper conceived and perpetrated by Denfeld Hunters: the raising of a Volkswagen Bug onto the roof of Central High School as a Maroon and Gold Day prank. I wasn’t there to witness Mike’s participation in the scheme: My wife, Rene’ Privette Munger, a classmate of Mike’s, swears she witnessed the planning and plotting behind the incident. Behind the serious journalist, then, lurked the heart of a guy who enjoyed life, his family, his friends, and a good laugh.
As a Denfeld alum, I followed Mike’s career in radio from his early days in AM newsrooms around the Twin Ports, through his apprenticeship far from home, to his triumphant return as the first Northern Reporter for Wisconsin Public Radio (and News Director of KUWS) and marveled at his dedication to task. I too learned my craft at the knees of such great teachers as Jean Endrizzi, Judy Infelise Bonovetz, and Goldie Cohen (who was also the adviser to the school newspaper, The Criterion) over my years at Lincoln Junior High and Denfeld, the schools where Mike cut his journalistic teeth. But unlike Mike, my early fascination with reportage turned sour after a single year at UMD: I ended up ditching my love of writing to become a trial attorney; giving up my avocation for a vocation. Mike, on the other hand, knew what he wanted to do for his life’s work and stayed the course, garnering, as set forth above, more accolades and awards than any other Twin Ports reporter in history.
Others have said it better than I can. When Mike was on a story, whether supervising his young student reporters at KUWS, interviewing a subject himself, or sitting in as a panelist on “Final Edition”, a program dedicated to highlighting the news of the week through the eyes of local journalists and reporters, he was determined to get to the truth. He didn’t countenance the slight of hand responses and sound bites that we so often hear on the air and read in print as “answers” from public officials and politicians. He did not suffer fools lightly. His dogged dedication to the craft of truth-telling made him a throw-back to the golden age of radio journalism. His career mimicked, in this regard, the timeless characters portrayed on the nostalgic radio drama he created and shared with other Northland radio greats, Lou Martin, Ray Paulson, and Jack McKenna.
I had the pleasure of appearing on Mike’s news program a number of times to talk about my books. Mike was also present in the studio as a producer when I appeared on Duke Skorich’s show and on Henry Banks’s “People of Color”. The coverage he gave my books was invaluable to my success as a regional author. During these broadcasts, there were plenty of jokes and smiles to be had despite the serious nature of the work.
I always wondered about Mike’s health but I was not a close enough friend or acquaintance to pose questions about his life choices. Five years or so ago, I remember climbing the stairs with Mike in the Holden Fine Arts building as he led me towards the KUWS studio for an interview. I noted the physical struggle Mike had with a simple set of stairs and the experience concerned me so much that, when I got home that night, I mentioned Mike’s difficulty in negotiating the stairs to my wife. That he was, despite the obvious discomfort of the effort, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, was, we concluded a positive. In the end, it apparently wasn’t enough.
Here’s how far reaching Mike’s influence really was. A month ago, while out promoting my new novel, I found myself in Park Rapids, Minnesota where I bumped into a friend, Heidi Holtan, program manager of KAXE radio. Heidi invited me into the city armory where she and a crew were making ready for the Great Northern Radio Show, KAXE’s equivalent of “A Prairie Home Companion.” Inside the vaulted room, Heidi introduced me to Hibbing writer and blogger, Aaron Brown. I’d corresponded with Aaron about his book, Overburden, but never met him. Within minutes, the two of us were talking about his teacher and my fellow Denfeld alum, Mike Simonson. The impact Mike’s hard nosed instruction and consistent mentoring had on Aaron cannot be understated: Brown held Mike Simonson up as the exemplar of a journalist.
A few days after Mike’s passing, I read the Duluth News Tribune’s endorsement of Stewart Mills for the 8th District (Minnesota) Congressional seat. Something about the endorsement didn’t ring true. There, on the printed page, was a disclaimer of sorts, a small box that (paraphrasing) indicated the endorsement was made by “newspaper management” rather than by the paper’s editorial board. So, in essence, rather than having the two candidates appear, as all other candidates were requested to do, in front of the local editors of the paper, folks living, working, and writing in the district at issue, the Fargo, North Dakota owners of the paper made the endorsement, as we lawyers would say, suis sponte, on their own. That’s the sort of journalistic slight-of-hand that would have driven Mike Simonson to don his fedora, grab his pencil and note pad, and head for the door. He would not have let the paper hide behind their disclaimer. He would have gotten the story and made sure everyone within earshot knew the truth. That’s the man, the reporter, the legend that Duluth-Superior will sorely miss.
God bless you, Mike, from your students, your listeners, your family, and the folks who loved your work.
Peace.
Mark
