Steve Alexander

A flood that wiped out part of the family farm was one of the best things that ever happened to young Steve Alexander. The usually meek, but suddenly mighty, South Platte River carried away the family's pig barn. All that was left was the cement slab. Steve's dad decided that it wasn't worth it to rebuild the barn, so the family was out of the pig business. And Steve was out of the pig barn cleaning business!

Of all the wonderful memories---and there are many---of his life on the northeast Colorado farm, cleaning the pig barn isn't one of them.

Steve's agricultural lineage also includes several years of mixing feed, cleaning and sacking grain and delivering bulk feed from his parent's feed and seed store and elevator in Sterling, Colorado.

But, what really caught his interest was what his older brother Lyle Dean was doing. When the weather was cold and the nights were long, Steve could tune in his transistor radio to WLS early in the morning and hear Lyle doing the news on Larry Lujack's show.

What he heard fascinated him and seemed so much more appealing than lugging 100 pound bags or cleaning pig pens. After many years of radio and television news in Denver, Seattle and other markets, Steve moved to Chicago in 2007 and began working at WGN Radio.

Feel free to contact him at saalexander@tribune.com.