GRANITE FALLS, Minnesota, October 20, 2025—On Saturday, October 18, 2025, during an awards ceremony in Prior Lake, Minnesota, Pioneer PBS’s locally produced program Postcards and Pioneer PBS Specials program took home four Upper Midwest Emmy® awards out of 22 total nominations(!) featuring stories about you and your neighbors and even our staff from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Upper Midwest Chapter. This is the 13th year in a row that Pioneer PBS has received Upper Midwest Emmys® for its local programs, for a total of 35 Emmys since 2013.
The Pioneer PBS Postcards team, produced by Dana Conroy, with videography and editing by Ben Dempcy and Kristofor Gieske, received two Emmys within the same Arts/Entertainment—Short Form Content (up to 10 minutes) category! The Heart of Art features painter Janel Guertin, who has ingeniously combined her passion for painting with her love for her cats, and Anything but Brushes features painter Zak Jahn, whose unique painting style draws inspiration from the emotions he's feeling in the moment, which are applied to the canvas in many ways besides the brush. The third Emmy win came in the Lifestyle - Short Form Content (up to 10 minutes) category for Driven to Excellence, which features Chris Runge who is the founder of Runge Cars, a company known for its innovative and uniquely custom-designed handbuilt vehicles.
Held in Minnesota: Untold WWII POW Stories, produced by Susan Marks, won an award in the Documentary-Historical category. The story is about the forgotten history of twenty-one POW labor camps in Minnesota during WWII, by way of a major POW camp in Algona, Iowa.
Watch all of Pioneer PBS’s nominated stories, past and present, online at pioneer.org/emmys.
About Pioneer PBS
Established in 1966, Pioneer PBS is an award-winning, viewer-supported television station dedicated to sharing stories from rural Minnesota with the world. Pioneer PBS is headquartered in Granite Falls, Minnesota, with towers in Appleton, Worthington, and Fergus Falls. Pioneer PBS reaches more than a million people in rural areas and small towns in western Minnesota, the eastern Dakotas, and northern Iowa. Pioneer PBS is honored to be your television station—the only station in western Minnesota telling your stories and raising your voices into the media landscape. Our members help make programs like this possible with their generous support. For more information about Pioneer PBS or how you can help us make these stories a reality, visit pioneer.org/donate or call 800-726-3178.
About Postcards
Postcards is an award-winning art, culture, and history program. It is made possible by contributions from the voters of Minnesota through a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. The 2025 season is made possible by funding from Shalom Hill Farm, Explore Alexandria Tourism, Lake Region Arts Council, KRAM 96.7, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, and members of Pioneer PBS.
About Prairie Sportsman
Prairie Sportsman is an Emmy-awarded series that celebrates the love of the outdoors by featuring topics on hunting, fishing, and recreation while promoting environmental stewardship. The 2025 season is made possible by funding from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, Shalom Hill Farm, Live Wide Open, Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, and members of Pioneer PBS. If you enjoy Prairie Sportsman, become a friend of Prairie Sportsman by filling out a Google Form.
About Pioneer PBS Specials
These programs are made possible by contributions from the voters of Minnesota through a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and members of Pioneer PBS.