Gene Hetland retiring from KSOO Radio

This is how 63-year-old Gene Hetland sums up his life: "Started at the radio station in August of 1976. Grew up on a farm mostly north of Montrose. SDSU. Couple of jobs before I had this one. And I've been here ever since."

"Here" is the news director's desk at KSOO Radio in Sioux Falls and "ever since" dates back to Aug. 25, 1976, when he first spoke into a microphone after brief stops at a Huron radio station and a Sioux Falls television station.

What Hetland's brief summary doesn't include, however, is the impact he has made on his listeners and his peers over a career that will end Jan. 30 when he retires.

He is one of a trio of South Dakota broadcasters whose careers began in the 1970s, the "old guys" in a business where you recognize the voice without ever seeing the face.

"He's always been a guy I've respected. He cuts to the bottom line of stories in a hurry," said Jerry Oster, news director at WNAX in Yankton. "Guys like Gov. (Bill) Janklow, Larry Pressler — he could get to the bottom-line question pretty quick."

David J. Law has known Hetland for more than 40 years, since Hetland started at KJIV in Huron shortly after graduating from South Dakota State University.

'He carries a sense of trust about him'

"He can pull a story together so well," said Law, news director at KXLG in Watertown. "I think it's because he's so good at relationship building. He carries a sense of trust about him."

Radio show host Rick Knobe has worked with Hetland at KSOO since 1991, but their relationship began in the 1970s when Knobe was mayor and Hetland was a television reporter. From the beginning, Hetland showed a desire to get the story right the first time, Knobe said.

"I remember Gene being extremely inquisitive and very fair," Knobe said. "The aftermath of Watergate was still around, and every reporter was kind of looking to make their name by hanging politicians by their thumbs, and Mr. Hetland was not like that. He just wanted to get the story straight."

Hetland would shrug off any such praise. Anyone who sums up his life and career in 32 words doesn't exactly relish attention coming his way. What he prefers is to help people understand the joy he's found in his career.

Broadcasting radio news likely isn't something a lot of people aspire to, Hetland said. But they should.

'I'm intensely proud of what we've done here'

"Not that many young people go to college and say, 'Man, I hope I get to do radio news,' but there's value in it," Hetland said. "People in their cars are listening to you, and the guy shaving in front of the mirror. To me this is a really important thing. I'm intensely proud of what we've done here."

As a college student, Hetland thought what he wanted to do was television news, and he did that in Sioux Falls for 19 months. It's an experience that he refuses to say much about, but good did come out of it.

"I realized that radio was a here-and-now kind of thing, and I still feel that way," Hetland said. "The public needs to know what's going on. There's value in being here when people are getting up in the morning, and you can tell them what went on overnight."

Hetland has been the one telling listeners "what went on overnight" since the early 1980s when he officially took over the morning shift. That means he's up at 3 a.m. and on the air 90 minutes later. That means early evenings, but luckily his wife, Sharon, shared a similar shift until she retired from Raven Aerostar a year ago. They have been married for 31 years.

"I understand there's TV at 9 o'clock at night," Hetland jokes. "At our house, it's always been '8 is late.' "

For Hetland, early mornings began on the farm. He grew up with KSOO Radio playing in the house as his parents started the day with longtime announcer Wayne Pritchard. At night, however, like so many other teenagers in the 1960s, he would turn the radio dial to more exotic channels that blasted rock 'n' roll: KOMA in Oklahoma City, WLS in Chicago, KFYR in Bismarck, N.D., and KAAL in Little Rock, Ark.

When he started at KIJV in Huron, he was the afternoon drive guy and music director. Since he started as KSOO, though, it's been nothing but news one exception.

"That was a Saturday afternoon when they were really, really in a bind," Hetland said. "I was a board operator for four hours, and I played music and switched into and out of a baseball game. Aside from that, I'm a one-trick pony."

More private than some radio personalities

While some radio announcers draw people into their lives — Hetland remembers Pritchard chatting about his children — he has tended to avoid that. Many of his listeners may be unaware, then, that Hetland was diagnosed with diabetes 53 years ago. About a dozen years ago, the impact of the disease led to the loss of one of his feet.

He describes diabetics as being invisible, with little visible indication of a disease. A former classmate once said to him, "You grew out of that, didn't you?"

"I've had really good doctors here, and I have been taken care of really well, but even people with the best of control, it's going to have an impact," Hetland said. "It can't not. But it's much better to be diagnosed as a diabetic now than it was in 1962."

Law, the Watertown news director, said radio people across South Dakota will miss Hetland. They circulate news among each other, making sure stations in different communities can keep their listeners up to date with shared stories.

"We're going to lose a friend first of all," Law said. "For all of us around South Dakota he's been a real key link to Sioux Falls."

Hetland has been a stickler in keeping The Associated Press straight in its geographic locations, Law said, a fanatic about story accuracy but with a friendly manner.

"To me, radio is more real than getting (news) off your phone or whatever," Hetland said. "I'm kind of an old stick-in-the-mud, but I've learned to live with it."