Rhonda Kramer

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present you with Rhonda Kramer, Channel 12 Minneapolis’s eye-in-the-sky herself. This woman achieved a level of renown unequaled in the greater Minneapolis area 2005-2008, when she was presented for four years running with the Quality Traffic Reporting (air-based) Newsie©. Now, we all remember how Topher Lutz took that title in 2009 when Fox 13 unveiled their fancy traffic dirigible and stole some of our ratings, but Rhonda Kramer never stopped her quality traffic reporting from 10,000 feet.

And it was that exact tenacity of spirit that led her to reclaim her title earlier this year, when the dinopocalypse finally happened.   

A moment of silence, if you will, for the victims of that heinous day.

Now true, reporting on the sudden mystical reanimation of every dinosaur fossil wasn’t technically in her job description, but she can now add just that feat to her resume. Where other reporters fled screaming from the scene, Rhonda Kramer kept her cool and accurately diagrammed the carnage unfolding below. Now, true, she didn’t have to deal with reanimated velociraptor skeletons, and the pterodactyls had a tougher time with her helicopter than they did with poor Topher Lutz’s airship.

Another moment of silence, please. For Topher.

And while that unique combination of factors might mean that she is the only eligible reporter left alive that was on the scene that day, that should in no way diminish the solid quality of her reporting.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my great honor to present the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Reporting to Rhonda Kramer!