KAXE earns 10 Eric Sevareid Awards from Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association

The KAXE News team earned recognition in 10 categories of the 2025 Eric Sevareid Awards from the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association.

Among Medium Market Radio entrants, the team earned two first-place awards for its coverage of severe flooding in northeast Minnesota (Weather-Team Coverage) and reporter Larissa Donovan's story on the Indigenous nursing program at Bemidji State University (Soft Feature).

Awards of Merit included:

• Up North Report - April 27, 2024 (Evening Newscast)
• Up North Report - April 5, 2024 (Morning Newscast)
• Election skepticism part of Crosslake's push to handle absentee ballots - Story 1, Story 2 and Story 3 (General Reporting)
• Minnesota's richest-in-the-world helium deposit (Hard Feature)
• Public housing proposal at Cobb Cook Park (News Series)
• Grand Rapids hockey heads to state (Sports Reporting)
• 2024 Election Guide and coverage (Team Multimedia Storytelling-News)
• How Minnesota's 'off the charts mild' winter compares to past seasons (Weather-Feature)

News Director Chelsey Perkins collected the awards at a banquet Saturday, April 12, as part of the 2025 Midwest Journalism Conference at the Hilton DoubleTree Minneapolis South in Bloomington.

"I'm incredibly proud of our team's showing at the Sevareid Awards. This is our first time entering the contest, with KAXE News getting its start when I joined the station in early 2023," Perkins said. "In a short time, we've shown what we can accomplish with hard work and dedication to covering local news in our own Northern Minnesota communities.

"Awards are great, but what's most rewarding is the positive feedback we continue to hear from our audience about what our work means to them."

CEO/General Manager Sarah Bignall also expressed her pride in the team.

"These awards are a reminder that meaningful journalism doesn't have to come from a big newsroom. Our reporters live in the communities they cover, and they care deeply about the people they're reporting on," Bignall said. "This recognition reinforces what we already know: that rural stories matter, and that our communities deserve strong, local journalism."

Since 1976, KAXE has served the communities of rural Northern Minnesota with independent community radio, powered by people. The mission of KAXE News is to ensure we provide our listeners and readers with the highest-quality independent, fact-based news and information about Northern Minnesota. Our stations are located in Grand Rapids and Bemidji. Listen to us at 91.7 FM in Grand Rapids, 90.5 FM in Bemidji, and 89.9 FM in Brainerd.

The Eric Sevareid Awards are named for the North Dakota-born and University of Minnesota-educated journalist best known for his work as a correspondent for CBS Radio and Television.

Each year, the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association presents awards to the best work done by broadcast news operations and journalists working in small, medium and large markets in its six-state region on radio, television and online.

A distinguished panel of judges is made up of journalists and educators who live outside of Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Iowa and Nebraska to help ensure impartiality.