From Intern to Emmy winner!

Congratulations to WXOW morning anchor Amy DuPont for winning a regional Emmy award. Amy received the honor for a special news report called "Healers at Wounded Knee".

In May of 2010 Amy and former WXOW photographer Kirk Arneson traveled with a team of health professionals at La Crosse's Gundersen Lutheran hospital to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  Gundersen staff members provide free healthcare at a clinic in the village of Porcupine for one week each month. These doctors and nurses use their vacation time and pay their own way to get to and from the Reservation.

The care these volunteers provide is desperately needed. Pine Ridge has some of the worst health statistics in the world. Access to quality healthcare is hard to come by. Infant mortality on the reservation is five times higher than the national average. Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease occur in epidemic proportions. The average life expectancy is 52 years for a woman and just 48 years for a man.

While in Pine Ridge, Amy and Kirk used an "MJ kit" to send short stories back to the newsroom on a daily basis. After returning to La Crosse, they put together a 5 part series that ran during News 19 Daybreak and the 6pm report. Amy wrapped up her coverage of Pine Ridge with a half hour special titled "Healers at Wounded Knee". WXOW promotions director Jake Anderson edited the show.

Amy began her television career at WXOW in 2001. Amy interned with News 19 and was eventually promoted to weekend producer. She left La Crosse to become the weekend anchor at KSAX-TV in Alexandria, Minnesota. Amy returned to WXOW in 2002 and assumed the duties of weekend weather anchor. She made the switch back to news a year later and was promoted to Daybreak anchor in March of 2004.

Amy has been honored by the Associated Press of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association for Best Series Reporting, Best Feature Reporting, Best Hard News Story, Best Photography, Best Sports Reporting, and Best Morning Newscast. This is her first Emmy award and the first ever won by an employee at WXOW.

When asked about winning an Emmy, Amy said she's most proud "the judges recognized good reporting is being done in small market television". Amy would like to thank her co-workers for their hard work, as well as the Gundersen Lutheran-Pine Ridge team and the Lakota people for allowing her to tell their story.