Dawn Stensland Mendte

Biography

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved quite a bit in her school years to Charlotte, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina and Farmington, Minnesota, where Dawn graduated from Farmington High School. Stensland-Mendte earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Minnesota, where she was president of the schools Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Stensland-Mendte is married to Larry Mendte, a radio talk show host, TV news commentator and news anchor.

Career

Stensland-Mendte started her television career at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when in 1986 she was awarded the one paid internship that the station awards every year. Stensland-Mendte was hired as a producer and anchor at WREX-TV in Rockford, Illinois in 1987 and at WKOW-TV in Madison, Wisconsin in 1988, where she also hosted the Sunday morning political talk show, Capitol City Sunday. From 1989 to 1992 Stensland-Mendte was the main anchor at WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Florida before being hired by WBBM, the CBS owned and operated station in Chicago, where she covered the Chicago Flood and several championships for the Chicago Bulls. In 1994, Stensland-Mendte was hired by WKYC-TV in Cleveland, Ohio to co-anchor the 6 & 11 o'clock newscast.

Philadelphia

Stensland-Mendte is best known for her anchoring in Philadelphia. From 1997 to 2000, she co-anchored the 6 & 11 o'clock newscast with Larry Kane at KYW-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While she was at KYW, Stensland-Mendte also co-hosted CBS Saturday Morning with Russ Mitchell. In 2000 KYW didn't renew Stensland's contract and she was immediately hired by WTXF-TV, the Fox owned and operated station in Philadelphia, to be the main anchor.. Stensland Mendte anchored the 10 o'clock newscast until December, 2009. Since 2010, Stensland-Mendte has been the TV spokesperson for Dreambaby child safety products, manufactured by the Australian Company Tee-Zed. In September, 2012, Stensland-Mendte started hosting her own talk show, A New Dawn, on WMCN-TV, located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia. In March, 2013 WMCN changed the name of the show to simply "Dawn."

Scandal

Stensland-Mendte's husband Larry Mendte co-anchored at KYW with Alycia Lane when she was fired for striking a New York City woman police officer and calling her a "dyke bitch" in December, 2008. Lane then complained to the FBI that Mendte was looking at her emails. Mendte pleaded guilty to federal charges and admitted to a blossoming romance with Lane that he ended when his wife found racy emails from Lane to Mendte. In a public statement, Mendte says Lane then tried to get him fired and he looked at her emails to defend himself. These details were reported on newscasts that Stensland-Mendte anchored. When Mendte was sentenced, Dawn Stensland-Mendte took the stand looked at Lane and said "there is nothing but sadness in our house." The scandal was front page news in Philadelphia for a year and Stensland-Mendte was praised for her courage and for standing by her man.

Congress

In 2010 Stensland-Mendte made headlines in Philadelphia when she was approached to run as a Republican in Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district. Ironically, she would have run in the primary against Pat Meehan, who was the U.S. Attorney, overseeing the case against her husband. After a flurry of new reports and columns, Stensland-Mendte decided not to run.

Family

Stensland-Mendte is still married to Larry Mendte. Together, they have two children, both sons; Michael was born in 2004, and David was born in 2006. In addition, Mendte has two adult children, Stacia and Jonathan, from a previous marriage.