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Sportscaster Dale Hansen will speak in Webster City

Dale Hansen

WEBSTER CITY — A nationally-known sportscaster will be in Webster City next week.

Dale Hansen, an award-winning Dallas, Texas, sportscaster will speak at Webster City Middle School on Sept. 12 for the Hamilton County Democrats annual soup supper.

He’s coming because he is the brother of Colleen Hansen, who is running for Hamilton County treasurer.

“He told me he would be very honored to do this for me,” Colleen Hansen said. “He doesn’t get back very often. He’s fairly busy down there with the Cowboys training camp and things like that. I’m pretty excited that he’s coming for this and to help support me also.”

The two grew up in Logan. Dale Hansen is seven years older than Colleen Hansen.

“I always like an opportunity to get back home,” Dale Hansen said on Monday. “I have a lot of buddies of mine I went to high school with coming in to hear me, as well, and a kid who followed me in Newton when I got my first broadcasting job at KCOB in Newton. That will all be fun.”

Hansen said he will focus his speech on the importance of voting.

“Probably, as best I can, just try and rally people to get out and vote,” he said. “I got very strict marching orders from my news director that I can’t bash Trump, so there went half my speech.”

Hansen is typically not allowed to get involved in politics, but because it’s his sister an exception is being made, he said.

“I talk about social issues,” he said. “I talk about all of the things that interest Democrats, certainly. I have to rework my speech a little.”

He won’t be there to endorse any candidate other than his sister, he said.

“Primarily, I’ll talk about the issues that face all of us in America,” he said. “I hope, and think being from Iowa, they will be able to relate to what I am talking about. If not, I wasted my plane ticket.”

Hansen enjoyed his time as a broadcaster in Iowa.

“My first job was in Newton — those were probably some of the best days of my life, without question,” he said. “I finally got this broadcasting job I always wanted. A guy by the name of John Carl hired me for $94 a week in Newton, Iowa, in 1972. Now I make a little more than that. And yet those three years or so in Newton, Iowa, that’s just about as good as my life has ever been. I was broadcasting games, I was breaking stories.”

While in Newton, Hansen won an award for his reporting.

“It sits right above my desk,” he said. “One of the greatest awards I have ever won. It was at a daytime radio station in 1974. I was chosen the Iowa Associated Press investigative reporter of the year. I was floored. We had done a bunch of great stories because Newton had some serious issues going on at that time. I was a rather aggressive news reporter by that time. Next thing I know I get this plaque, and that’s been on my wall every day since. I’ve never forgot where I started, where I am from, and how much I enjoyed those days. But I have had some great experiences that have just added to it as every year has gone by.”

Prior to broadcasting, Hansen served his country from 1966 to July of 1969 in the U.S. Navy as a radioman during the Vietnam War.

He graduated from high school and joined the service eight days later.

“I went straight to boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois,” he said.

Near the end of camp, he was asked what job he wanted.

“You had to list three things you wanted to be,” he said. “I listed radioman, radioman, and radioman.”

He was told to give two other choices, but he was adamant on being a radioman.

“I was chosen for radio school, although it wasn’t quite the job I thought it would be,” Hansen said. “I had to learn Morse Code, which was kind of frightening when I started, but I did.”

Hansen has been in Dallas for the past 38 years. He is the weeknight sports anchor during the 10 p.m. newscast on WFAA Channel 8 in Texas.

He wanted to work in a larger city with professional sports teams to cover.

“I came to Dallas in August of 1980,” he said. “I didn’t really want to go to Dallas per se, but I always wanted to go to what I considered a major league city, i.e. the Cowboys, the Rangers, the Mavericks. I also wanted to go to a warm weather climate. I pretty much had it with the snowstorms in Iowa and I was in Minnesota for a while. I just got tired of snow tires and snow drifts. I wanted to go some place warm. And it turns out Dallas is absolutely perfect for me. We get about two to three weeks of winter every year. The rest of the time is just pretty decent.”

He told his future wife he would be in Dallas for a while.

“I was dating the woman that I have been married to for 36 years and I called her from Dallas and I said do you want to move to Dallas?” Hansen recalled. “I said I’m going to die here. This was 1980. I was 32. I said I’m going to die here and I said I’d like you to come here and die with me. That was my so-called proposal.”

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