Longtime TV and radio broadcaster Stan Turner dies at 81

Stan Turner, a former KSTP-TV news anchor who spent 35 years at Hubbard Broadcasting, died Sunday of cancer.

He was 81. Turner had been in hospice at Our Lady of Peace in St. Paul, according to family spokesperson Tom Oszman.

Born in Omaha, he moved with his family to Minnesota as a child. After graduating from St. Louis Park High School, Turner studied journalism at the University of Minnesota.

He began his career toggling between radio and TV and joined Hubbard in 1968 as a government reporter at KSTP-TV.

He would add jobs such as associate news director, weekend anchor, news director and weekday co-anchor over the ensuing decades.

In 1989, Turner became the weekday anchor of the company’s satellite All News Channel, which had a national audience. He worked there until the channel shut down in 2002.

Turner then returned to radio, becoming news director and a reporter at the MNN Radio Network. Turner also hosted a Saturday program on KLBB-AM as well as a music request show.

Turner, who also taught at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and the University of St. Thomas, was inducted in the Pavek Museum’s broadcasting hall of fame in 2009.

“Even though Stan was a competitor to my husband’s station, he was a fine gentleman and a wonderful news anchor,” said Nancy Nelson, a fellow Pavek Museum inductee who was married to the late legendary WCCO newsman Bill Carlson. “He was one of the old-timers who was independent, unbiased and gave you the news respectfully. Stan was a credit to the profession.”

Survivors include daughters Laura Schubkegel and Katherine Urich, son John Turner and a sister, Donna Cannon.