MPR News editor-at-large and retired host Gary Eichten has worn many hats during his 40-plus-year career at Minnesota Public Radio, including news director, special events producer and station manager. He has served as host for Minnesota Public Radio's live, special events news coverage, and has hosted all of the major news programs on Minnesota Public Radio, including Midday, which he hosted for more than 20 years.
A graduate of St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, Eichten began his career at Minnesota Public Radio as a student announcer at KSJR (Minnesota Public Radio's first station). Among the honors Eichten has received during his career is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting award for best local news program. He also assisted in the development of two Peabody award-winning documentaries. In 2007, he was inducted into the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting's Hall of Fame. Eichten has also been awarded the prestigious 2011 Graven Award by the Premack Public Affairs Journalism Awards Board for his contribution to excellence in the journalism profession.
December 25, 2007 - Truman Capote reads his story "A Christmas Memory," Garrison Keillor does a Christmas "News from Lake Wobegon," and Dan Olson reads the famous 1897 New York Sun Christmas letter "Is there a Santa Claus."
December 20, 2007 - BIll Holm speaks at the Minneapolis Library series Talk of the Stacks. Holm talks about what living in Iceland teaches you about America in his book "Windows of Brimnes: An American In Iceland."
December 20, 2007 - Two of Minnesota's freshman congressmen, Tim Walz and Keith Ellison, discuss what surprised them, what made them proud, and what they found disappointing about their first year in Washington D.C.
December 7, 2007 - Two lives changed by Pearl Harbor. Ken Deans was in the Army on the Island of Oahu on Dec. 7th, l941. His base was hit during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Carl Nomura was 19 at the time and living in Los Angeles. Not long after the attack, he and 120,000 other Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps.
November 26, 2007 - MPR’s Gary Eichten interviews Minnesota writer Jim Klobuchar about his book "Pieces of My Heart: Everyone has an Everest." Klobuchar, an award-winning former columnist for the Star Tribune, discusses collection of essays about the people on his travels who have inspired him.
November 21, 2007 - "Prince of Tides" author Pat Conroy says "Patricia Hampl writes the best memoirs of any writer in the English language." She has written five of them, most recently "The Florist's Daughter," which she adapted into a performance and reading recently at the Fitzgerald Theater. Minnesota memoirist Patricia Hampl has won numerous honors including a Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. Hampl is also a regents professor of English at the University of Minnesota.
November 13, 2007 - Norman Mailer on life, art and politics.Literary legend Norman Mailer died Saturday at 84. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner talked about his long career in American letters in January at an event sponsored by the New York Times. The event was part of the New York Times' "TimesTalks" series.
November 5, 2007 - Midday presents an American RadioWorks documentary titled “Wanted: Parents,”which focuses on two teens looking for adoption before they age out of foster care at 18.
October 29, 2007 - Kevin Kling, one of Minnesota's best-known storytellers, explains the title of his new book "The Dog Says How," the difficulties of catching a wild beaver and why he's so obsessed with squirrel monkeys, in a recent performance at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Minnesota writer and humorist Kevin Kling has collected some of his best NPR pieces and new essays into his first book, "The Dog Says How."
October 29, 2007 - Kevin Kling explains the title of his new book "The Dog Says How," the difficulties of catching a wild beaver and why he's so obsessed with squirrel monkeys, in a recent performance at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul.