Ken Speake told stories on TV for more than 37 years.

He's not an awards seeker, but he won drawers full of 'em. He's proudest of the IRIS award he received in 2000 from the National Association of Television Programing Executives. It's an award for on-camera performance which was unexpected, because Ken generally disregards standups. He figured with only 90 seconds to tell a story, he needed all that time to show viewers pictures of the subjects of the story. He also kept a regional EMMY he won for the 1995 piece, "Daisy the Goose," which, since his retirement February 16, "went viral" on the internet. Check it out. On your favorite search engine, enter "Daisy the Goose" with the included quotes. There's a regional Emmy Speake won in 2005, for a piece about precocious pianists. He treasures the silver medal he won at the New York Film Festival in 1984, for the first story he shot at KARE, about eight-year-old Derek Geiser, whose arm was wrenched off in a farm accident, and reattached at North Memorial Medical Center.

Ken started telling stories at KARE 11 in 1979. He cut his teeth in the business at WKBT-TV, WKBH Radio in La Crosse, Wisconsin, beginning in 1969. He also worked at WJIM TV in Lansing, Michigan and KUTV in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received his B.S. Degree in English and Speech from Iowa State University in 1969. During college, he worked at KMEG TV in Sioux City, Iowa, WOI-TV in Ames, Iowa and several radio stations.

Ken and Donna, who married in 1967, have three children, Chris, Mike and Tim. Ken loves to read, listen to music and the sounds of nature, watch birds, ride bike, and paddle and carry a canoe. His accomplishments pale in comparison to RAGBRAI veterans, but Ken rode his bike the 500 or so miles across Iowa in the famed bicycle ride three times and will again. He camps and canoes in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness routinely (though not as often as he'd like). Ken and Donna lived in Germany for a year. Ken worked as a printer’s devil (cleaning printing presses) at Suddeutsche Verlaganstalt, and assembled barber chairs and flip chart stands at Greiner Stahlmobel. That was in 1971 and 1972 and it still ranks as one of the most profound experiences of his life.