Paul Jurgens
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFGO) – KFGO News director Paul Jurgens is being honored in Bismarck Wednesday.
Jurgens is the latest recipient of the North Dakota Broadcasting Association’s Pioneer Award. It’s the association’s top honor. According to the association’s website, the Pioneer Award is given to a broadcaster who has made significant and lasting contributions to North Dakota broadcasting.
“I feel very fortunate to be honored by the North Dakota Broadcaster’s Association,” Jurgens said. “Broadcasters across the state make up the group.”
Jurgens began his career as a news reporter at KVOX in Moorhead in 1980. In 1983, he moved to KFGO.
“I was hired by Dick Voight who was the owner and general manager at the time,” Jurgens said. “I’ve gone through a number of ownership changes and survived them all.”
Jurgens’ first major assignment was covering the Medina shootout federal trials of Yorie Kahl and Scott Faul. He recalled a humorous story about that experience.
“It was my first real court case that I’d covered. In fact, I wasn’t quite sure where the federal courthouse in Fargo was,” Jurgens said. “During the trial, which was of course very dramatic, a deputy U.S. Marshal pulled me aside out in the hallway and said, ‘excuse me. Judge [Paul] Benson noticed that your shirttail is hanging out. Could you take care of that, please, and don’t let it happen again.’”
Jurgens said he didn’t let it happen again.
In 1989, Jurgens became news director at KFGO.
Other memories for Jurgens include the Red River floods of 1997 and 2009.
“We almost lost the city in 1997 in the middle of the night,” Jurgens said. “We had the mayor, city administrator, and city engineer come into the station at midnight. They wanted to go on the air. They went on the air and said, ‘we need to take measures now, or Fargo will go down.’ The measures were taken and the city was saved. ‘The flood of the century’ is what we called it then.”
Jurgens said KFGO had 24-hour coverage of the record flood of 2009.
“I recall working a long-long day. I went home and caught some sleep. I turned on the radio and Joel Heitkamp was talking about evacuating the city of Fargo,” Jurgens said. “There was some pressure to evacuate Fargo and see what happened. Mayor Dennis Walaker said, ‘no. We are not leaving this city.’ Residents and the city put up a fight and in 2009, we won that fight.”
Past Pioneer Award winners include former KFGO owner Dick Voight, who won the award in 2006. He died in May 2018. KFGO personality Bob Harris won the award in 2020. He died of COVID-19 that December.
Pioneer Award recipients are honored in the Hall of Fame interactive kiosk located at the Heritage Center in Bismarck.
WDAY television anchor Kerstin Kealy is also being honored this year.
The award was created in 1998.
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