Don Shelby
Keynote Speaker:
“The Unchanging World of Sinclair Lewis“
Don Shelby is widely considered one of the best, and most decorated, local news anchors and reporters in the country. He has won three National Emmys and two George Foster Peabody awards, which are the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. He was awarded the National Distinguished Service Award by the Society of Professional Journalists, the International Radio and Television News Directors Association’s First Place honors for International Investigative Reporting and Columbia University’s DuPont Award for Investigative Journalism. He retired from daily reporting and anchoring at WCCO in November 2010, after 45 years in the industry.
Since his retirement, Don continues his work in environmental journalism and is a member of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team round table. He currently serves on the board of Climate Generation, the Great Plains Institute and is a trustee of the Science Museum of Minnesota. He is a credited co-author of the communique of the Oslo, Norway Congress on Solutions to Climate Change, sponsored by the Nobel Peace Prize Institute.
Don’s first book, The Season Never Ends: Wins, Losses, and the Wisdom of the Court, was published in 2011. It features a foreword by former University of Minnesota men’s basketball head coach Tubby Smith and endorsements from sports analyst Ahmad Rashad and author Will Weaver. As a player, coach and observer, basketball remains one of Don’s passions.
Don is proud of his 10,000 plus volume book collection which includes many rare books and signed first editions. He is also proud of his family, including Barbara, his wife of 48 years; his three grown daughters and his four grandchildren.
Despite his professional accomplishments as a broadcast journalist, author, playwright and actor, the face Don shaves every morning is still that of a seventeen-year old basketball player.
This year marks Don’s third turn as a keynote speaker at the Sinclair Lewis Writers’ Conference. He last joined us in 2015 as part of the conference’s 25th Anniversary Celebration, where he wrote and acted in a special performance portraying Mark Twain and what he had to say about writers and writing.
Don’s keynote talk this year is entitled The Unchanging World of Sinclair Lewis. He will share a journalist’s perspective on how Lewis’s themes are ever-present and still in style.