John Hoffland
In a career that spanned five decades, he devoted his professional life to “the news”. A Wisconsin native, he began his career as a teenage disc jockey at WVRQ radio in Viroqua. He attended UW-La Crosse and graduated from Brown Institute of Broadcasting and Kirkwood College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After service in the Vietnam War from 1966-1968, he served on the news staffs of WIZM radio and WKBT-TV, both in La Crosse. He became a news producer, first at WEAU-TV and WAYY/WAXX radio in Eau Claire in 1978 and then at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis in 1979. From 1981 through 2007, he served as News Director at WEAU-TV with a 3 year hiatus from 1983-1986 when he was executive news producer and assistant News Director at WITI-TV in Milwaukee. He retired from WEAU-TV in 2007, only to return in 2008 and serve until his death in July 2009. In 2002, he received the Wisconsin Associated Press prestigious Carol Brewer Award for outstanding service to broadcast journalism.
