Dawn Stensland-Mendte
Dawn Stensland-Mendte | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Television talk show host, news anchor |
| Spouse | Larry Mendte (m. 2000) |
| Children | 2 |
Dawn Stensland Mendte is an American television talk show host and news anchor working at WJLP-TV in Freehold, New Jersey, and on WPHT 1210 AM in Philadelphia. She is also a past anchor of CBS Saturday Morning. Stensland-Mendte has anchored the news at TV stations across the country including WBBM-TV in Chicago, KYW-TV and WTXF-TV in Philadelphia and WKYC-TV in Cleveland. She is married to Larry Mendte, a radio talk show host, TV news commentator and news anchor.
Biography
Education
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved quite a bit in her school years to Charlotte, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina and Farmington, Minnesota, where Dawn graduated from Farmington High School. Stensland-Mendte earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Minnesota, where she was president of the school's Society of Professional Journalists chapter.
Career
Stensland started her television career at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, when she earned the one paid internship that the station awards every year. She was hired as a producer and anchor at WREX-TV in Rockford, Illinois, and at WKOW-TV in Madison, Wisconsin, where she also hosted the Sunday morning political talk show, "Capitol City Sunday."
She was the main anchor at WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, before being hired by WBBM-TV, the CBS owned-and-operated station in Chicago, where she was an anchor and reporter. Next, she was hired by WKYC-TV in Cleveland to co-anchor the 6 and 11 o'clock newscasts.[1]
Philadelphia
Stensland-Mendte is best known for her anchoring in Philadelphia. From 1997 to 2000, she co-anchored the 5 and 6 o'clock newscasts with Ukee Washington and Larry Kane at KYW-TV, CBS's Philadelphia outlet. While she was at KYW-TV, Stensland-Mendte also co-hosted CBS News Saturday Morning with Russ Mitchell.[2] In 2000, she was hired by WTXF-TV, the Fox owned and operated station in Philadelphia, to be the main anchor. Stensland-Mendte anchored the award winning, top rated 10 o'clock newscast for nearly a decade.[3]
Since 2010, Stensland-Mendte has been the TV spokesperson for Dreambaby child safety products, manufactured by the Australian Company Tee-Zed.[4] In September, 2012, Stensland-Mendte started hosting her own talk show, "A New Dawn," on WMCN-TV, a ShopHQ-affiliated station with studios in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia.[5] In March, 2013 WMCN changed the name of the show to simply "Dawn."
Stensland-Mendte is now heard on WPHT talk radio as the news anchor of the Rich Zeoli morning show, and hosting the 10 a.m. to noon slot.[6] She can also be seen as a featured reporter and host on Jersey Matters, a public affairs show at WJLP-TV in Freehold, New Jersey.[7]
Scandal
Stensland-Mendte's husband Larry Mendte co-anchored at KYW-TV with Alycia Lane when she was fired for striking a New York City woman police officer and calling her a "dyke bitch" in December, 2007.[8] Lane then complained to the FBI that Mendte was looking at her emails. Mendte pleaded guilty to one federal charge and admitted to a physical romance with Lane while his wife was going through a difficult pregnancy. He ended the romance when his wife found racy emails from Lane to Mendte.
In a public statement, Mendte says Lane then tried to get him fired and he looked at her emails to defend himself. These details were reported on newscasts that Stensland-Mendte anchored. When Mendte was sentenced, Dawn Stensland-Mendte took the stand, looked at Lane and said "there is nothing but sadness in our house." The scandal was front page news in Philadelphia for more than a year and Stensland-Mendte was praised for her courage and for standing by her husband.[9]
Congress
In 2010, Stensland-Mendte made headlines in Philadelphia when she was approached to run as a Republican in Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district. She would have run in a primary against Pat Meehan, who was the U.S. Attorney, overseeing the case against her husband. After a flurry of new reports and columns, Stensland-Mendte decided not to run.[10]
Family
Stensland-Mendte has been married to Larry Mendte since 2000. Together, they have two children, both sons; Michael was born in 2004, and David was born in 2006. She is also a step-mom to Mendte’s two adult children, Stacia and Jonathan, from a previous relationship.
References
- ^ Schneider, Kim (December 2007). "Anchorwomen We Loved". Cleveland Magazine.
- ^ "CBS taps Stensland for Regular "Saturday" Role". Variety. September 2, 2008.
- ^ Zoren, Neal (October 26, 2009). "Fox29 Lets Dawn Stensland's Contract Expire". Delaware County Times.
- ^ "Dreambaby Products". YouTube.
- ^ Gross, Dan (September 10, 2012). "DawnStensland's Back on TV". Philadelphia Daily News.
- ^ "Dawn Stensland To Join Talk Radio 1210 WPHT's Afternoon Show With Rich Zeoli". CBS Philly. November 12, 2015.
- ^ "Dawn Stensland-Mendte", WJLP-TV
- ^ Celona, Larry (December 16, 2007). "Alycia Lane Arrested, Punches Cop". New York Post. New York City.
- ^ Glemobocki, Vicki (January 24, 2009). "Dawn's Dark Days". Philadelphia Magazine. Philadelphia: Metrocorp. Archived from the original on January 22, 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
- ^ "Dawn of a New Era? Will Ex-Anchor Challenge Meehan?". Delaware County Times. January 24, 2009. Retrieved 2009-12-10.