2024
WISCONSIN
Honorees
Nick Bohr
Nick Bohr is a regional Emmy®, AP, Murrow, WBA and Milwaukee Press Club award-winning journalist who broadcast his first report for WISN-TV in 1994. His assignments have taken him as far as Italy and Germany, but his true passion has been telling the stories of the people of southeastern Wisconsin. Nick grew up in Batavia, Illinois, graduated from Marmion Military Academy and Marquette University, and began his career in radio news and play-by-play, first at WBEV/WXRO/WYKY in Beaver Dam. After three years, he moved to WISN Radio. A partnership between the Hearst-owned radio and television stations at the time provided Nick the opportunity to work in television. The WISN-TV news director saw his potential for expanding his storytelling to a wider audience and gave him a chance. With no television experience, Nick relied on the expertise of veteran photojournalists at WISN-TV to learn to marry video with the sound he had exclusively used to that point. After 30 years, he owes them a debt of gratitude. Nick has covered thousands of stories over the years. He provided extensive coverage of the sex abuse scandal in the Milwaukee Archdiocese, the Slenderman stabbing, Act 10 and the Miller Brewery shooting. He’s interviewed people ranging from Oscar Robertson to Giannis Antetokounmpo, Steven Avery to Rudy Giuliani, Hank Aaron to Bud Selig, and Jerry Lewis to Melissa Etheridge. As a general assignment reporter, Nick covers stories and gets results for viewers and the community. For instance, when he reported on the sudden closure of Golden Guernsey Dairy in 2013, he learned thousands of gallons of milk and dairy products would be going to waste. He alerted those who run Hunger Task Force, leading to eight semi-truck loads of dairy products being distributed to food pantries statewide. Sherrie Tussler, chief executive officer of the Hunger Task Force, said Nick’s intervention meant $420,000 worth of milk went to needy families instead of down the drain. Nick lives in Brookfield with Sue, his wife and partner of 27 years, without whom none of this would have been possible. They are proud to have two grown children, twins Ryan and Sophie.
Everett Lee Marshburn
“I didn’t choose public television, it chose me. I am eternally grateful it did because it has afforded me the opportunity to tell important stories that otherwise might not be told!” After 38 years at public television in Maryland, Everett L. Marshburn joined Milwaukee Public Television in 2006 as lead producer for “Black Nouveau.” In addition to guiding one of southeastern Wisconsin’s oldest magazine programs by and for the African American community, he has also produced a variety of programs and specials that examine the culture, history, and politics of the Milwaukee area, such as “Stories From the Homefront: The War in Wisconsin,” “This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price,” and “Freedom Walkers for Milwaukee.” Everett began his career in as a production assistant at Maryland Public Television in 1968, rising to associate producer, host, producer, executive producer, and eventually vice president for regional productions. He supervised a staff of 20 in the creation, production, and promotion of up to 200 hours of programming a year, and personally produced programs as well, including “State Circle,” “The Morgan Choir: A Silver Celebration,” “Other Faces of AIDS,” and “People of Brown.” The National Association of Black Journalists bestowed Everett its 2018 Journalist of Distinction Award. In 2013 he was inducted into the Maryland Public Broadcasting’s Alumni Wall of Honor and received the Bayard Rustin Leadership Award from Diverse & Resilient. Everett is also the 2012 and 2023 Black Excellence Awardee in the field of media from the Milwaukee Times. Everett has earned five regional Emmy® Awards; 14 NABJ Salute to Excellence Awards, two Golden Eagle awards from the Council on International Non-Theatrical Events, two Telly Awards, two Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Awards, a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media, and a duPont-Columbia Silver Baton. He is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Wisconsin Black Media Association, and the Beta Omega Epsilon Fraternity, Inc. He holds a history degree from Morgan State University in Baltimore. In his spare time, Everett enjoys double-deck pinochle, football, movies, reading, theater and old school music.
DAVE MICHUDA
Dave Michuda graduated from UW-Madison in 1983 with a double major in marketing and radio, TV & film. He focused more on marketing jobs for a few years and found himself selling broadcast video equipment, with WITI-TV as one of his customers. Dave discovered two things: he was terrible at sales, and he’d rather use the equipment than sell it. So, he took a part-time job as an assistant audio engineer at a local production company. Eventually, Dave moved from audio to video, shooting and editing for commercial clients. But he found you can only edit so many car dealer ads or industrial metal stamping videos before you start looking for a new challenge. That challenge came in the fall of 1994 when WITI-TV switched from CBS to Fox and expanded its news operation. Dave jumped into the role of show editor and loved the camaraderie that developed at the large newsroom, like soldiers getting shelled in a foxhole together. One of those in the foxhole with Dave was sports producer Brian Graham. Together, Dave and Brian worked on the “Sunday Blitz,” a Packers pregame show that won the pair their first regional Emmy®. The show was inventive in its use of music and fast-paced editing, like a mashup of NFL Films, MTV and too much Mountain Dew. The “Blitz” was crucial to Dave’s career because it moved him from the daily news grind to special projects. Those projects most often came in the form of Fox 6 Investigations, with exceptional investigative reporters like Bob Segall, Meghan Dwyer, Amanda St. Hilaire, Jenna Sachs, and, for nearly two decades, Bryan Polcyn. Dave’s editing magic has earned national, regional, and local honors for journalistic excellence, including 50 regional Emmy® Awards from the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, three national Edward R. Murrow awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, a du- Pont Columbia award, a Peabody, and a host of honors from the Milwaukee Press Club and Associated Press. “The awards are nice but, really, I just like a good story, well told,” Dave said.
John Stofflet
As a child, John Stofflet always wanted to be the next Johnny Carson. Somehow Jay Leno beat him to that job, but John found another: traveling on assignment to some 40 countries and all seven continents as a broadcast journalist. John has received 25 Chicago/Midwest Emmy® awards, including two for best news anchor. He also received three regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for reporting and writing, and numerous Wisconsin Broadcasters Association awards, including news writing and live on-scene reporting. After graduating from the UW-Madison School of Journalism in 1983, John began his television news career at WKOW-TV in Madison, where his feature stories aired on “Good Morning America.” He then reported at KING-TV in Seattle from 1989 to 2005, traveling the world for "Evening," freelance reporting for Nat Geo Channel, as well as hosting three specials at HGTV. Then it was back home to WMTV in Madison. While it was thrilling to interview presidents like Barack Obama and stars like George Clooney and Julia Roberts, John's favorite stories were about ordinary people who do the extraordinary, including a piece on a typewriter artist with cerebral palsy, viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube. John also interviewed a survivor of the Titanic in England on her 100th birthday. And he got close to his childhood dream by standing with Jay Leno behind the curtain as Leno kicked off a “Tonight Show” recording. John's flown through a hurricane, been in an avalanche, inside a developing tornado, and jumped off the 72nd story of a building in New Zealand, suspended from a cable. He has also dived with sharks and killer whales, knelt next to a tranquilized polar bear, and reported from among thousands of penguins in Antarctica for Nat Geo. The most rewarding aspect of his broadcasting career has been helping raise tens of millions of meals for Second Harvest, and as a volunteer board member at the Badger Childhood Cancer Network, which serves area families of kids with cancer. John is married to realtor Anna Trull and has a son, Taylor, and daughter, Kaia.
SUSAN VALOVIC
Susan Valovic’s passion for journalism and her commitment to a free press have deep roots. She spent her early life in a Communist-controlled country, where newspapers and the airwaves were government propaganda tools. The only real news came from those who traveled West or who smuggled information into the country, often at their own peril. A daring escape by her family in 1980 eventually brought Susan to Milwaukee and to a 33-year career as a video editor and director who fiercely promotes and defends journalism everyday. Once she was in the United States, Susan watched television news, though initially she didn’t know enough English to understand the stories. What she did see, though, were journalists reporting all sides of a story, free to criticize the government and the powerful without repercussions. Journalism was not Susan’s first career choice. She enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee planning to be an archeologist. But a part-time holiday job, with the wife of a local television anchor, renewed her interest in journalism. She changed her major and never looked back. At UWM, Susan became curious and then enthusiastic about the way video tells a story. She had an internship at WTMJ-TV, was hired as part-time editor, then full time after graduation in 1991. She has been there since. Susan also worked as a director for news programs. Her most memorable was the 2012 Sikh Temple shooting in Oak Creek, when a white supremacist shot and murdered six people and wounded four. Susan directed for 10 hours straight, bringing non-stop information to the community. She has won numerous awards, including a Wisconsin Broadcasters Association honor for a series on heroin in the suburbs. Susan’s colleagues describe her as the leader of the video editing crew; a hardworking, talented editor who is sharp and laser focused on great storytelling. Personally, Susan is grateful to her parents for the life they built in the United States for themselves and their three children. She is also grateful for her six nieces and nephews, who are the sunshine in her heart. Professionally, she still thanks the universe for the invention of time code.