Pioneer Public Television creates new mission with Legacy Amendment funds

By Gregg Aamot • MinnPost

APPLETON, Minn. - For nearly 50 years, the public TV station in this Swift County town has dutifully offered its rural viewers the time-honored menu of public broadcasting: many children's shows, some educational programs, a smattering of ­entertainment.

Even so, Pioneer Public Television has sought to broaden that mission in recent years, deepening its coverage of the people and places in this patchwork quilt of farm fields, small towns and open prairie on the western edge of Minnesota.

Some of the change is geographical. Digital and satellite technology, for instance, allows the station to now reach about 1 million potential viewers in its coverage area, including eastern South Dakota and northwestern Iowa, while a new mobile studio provides more coverage of regional events.

The heart and soul of Pioneer's aspirations, however — a heightened focus on storytelling — can be found in a series of documentaries that combine sharp videography, often of the region's spare beauty, and music with deep narratives. Five of these reports, which the station calls "Postcards," garnered regional Emmy nominations last summer.

"We aren't going out there and trying to get an Emmy," station manager Jon Panzer said. "We are just trying to do really good stories that mean something." He paused. "But when you start doing work at that level, things start to line up."

One Emmy winner, "Haiti Love," explored the efforts of a Prinsburg couple, Jay and Kris TeBrake, to adopt two children from earthquake-shattered Haiti. Other nominees: stories on the tight-knit Micronesian community in Milan; a Madison blacksmith and his apprentice; and a glass artist from tiny Vining, population 78.

Pioneer Public Television broadcast its first program in 1966 out of an old, red one-room schoolhouse that had been converted into a station. Nine years later, the station broadcast its first local show: a program on the agricultural youth group Future Farmers of America.

For years, the lineup on Pioneer was typical of many public stations: a heavy slate of PBS programs interspersed with local fare — ­earnest shows with such names as "Your Legislators" and "On Call for Health."

But sustained long-form journalism — an expensive kind of reportage — wasn't much of a possibility until 2008, when Minnesota voters approved a stable funding source for organizations that promote arts, culture and history across the state.

Pioneer applied for Legacy funding, and "Postcards" was born. It will begin its sixth season in December with 20 episodes on deck.

"It has been enormously enjoyable because we have wanted to do these kinds of stories for a long time," said Les Heen, the station's general manager. "People would come to us with ideas, but we didn't have a magazine show to put them in."

"Young people want to see stories that make them proud of where they live, instead of seeing greater Minnesota as this great wasteland," said videographer Ben Dempcy, who grew up nearby, went to Wisconsin for college, and returned home to a job at Pioneer.

Producer Andrea Singleton agreed, adding: "There is beauty in the prairie. A lot of artists and creative people are choosing to live here."

Gregg Aamot is a former reporter for the Associated Press and the author of "The New Minnesotans: Stories of Immigrants and Refugees." He is a journalism and English instructor at Ridgewater College and Normandale Community College.