It was with profound sadness that we learned that Ron Anderson passed away on February 19, 2009. Ron had made it possible for WDSE-TV to be linked to the Willard Munger/EARTH STEWARD project as its fiscal agent. He liked the legendary environmental legislator and he liked the project. Ron was fully aware of Willard's special place in Duluth and Minnesota history but never boasted to me of his own, important (and ironically less-visible) contribution to Duluth and WDSE-TV.

Ron Anderson was WDSE's Director of Programming for 38 years. Under his stewardship, public television in the Duluth-Superior region remained an ever-fascinating portal to the greater world and, through its own programs, a beacon for the rest of us of its color, texture and genious.

Conversations with Ron were not unlike, say, a great edition of the Charley Rose Show. His voice had an audible smile. In Ron Anderson, we had a renaissance person who was clearly excited by and knowledgable about the world's passions and issues and the mission of public television. I knew that, on the lighter side, he loved the Red Green Show, Corvettes and Venture North. His analysis of why they are successes on a variety of cultural levels came from his heart and his keen observational powers.

Now that digital television regularly delivers WDSE-produced specials and series to the Twin Cities region, it is more clear than ever that Ron Anderson was a great broadcaster.

Jeff Strate
Eden Prairie, MN