Author: Mike Brue
Mike Brue is a veteran newsman with print, broadcast and digital experience whose professional career as a communicator began 40 years ago. One of the original founders of Unheralded.Fish, he’s been on hiatus most of its existence following the on-duty shooting death of one of his brothers, Mendota Heights (Minn.) Police Officer Scott Patrick, in late July 2014. For eight years, Mike worked as news director and a public affairs program host/producer at WDAZ-TV in Grand Forks, N.D., during which time WDAZ won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for its coverage of the 1997 flood disaster. During about 21 total years at the Grand Forks Herald, he served as a reporter in news, features and sports; a columnist; and in separate editor stints while overseeing assignments, projects and GrandForksHerald.com’s news content. His Herald work earned multiple awards, including three for Best Column in a seven-year span from the North Dakota Newspaper Association. Raised in a two-newspaper-a-day household exposed him to the joys of newsprint, and grade-school fictional adventures featuring his friends introduced him to early lessons about storytelling. His fondness for Twins baseball led him after high school graduation to ask the St. Paul Pioneer Press' executive sports editor for tips about entering the business. That landed him a four-year part-and full-time job as a Pioneer Press sports and business copy desk clerk, fulfilled between duties at the College of St. Thomas' Aquinas yearbook and Aquin newspaper. His journalism degree led him to early '80s stints as a reporter-photographer for The Dickinson (N.D.) Press and editor for the Carver County Herald in Chaska, Minn. For more than three years, Brue has been communications director for charitable nonprofit NDAD, known also as the North Dakota Association for the Disabled, with headquarters in Grand Forks. Ever the Twins fan, Mike's active interests also include photography, travel, movies and reading.
