How We Got Started: Mike Binkley

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Graduation season is upon us, and a number of students are getting ready to leave either high school or college and move on with the next step in their lives.

For some people, deciding what they want to do next is easy. For others, this is a moment filled with unanswered questions.

All week, the WCCO Morning Show team is sharing how they ended up doing what they're doing. Previous installments covered the beginnings of Mike Augustyniak and Natalie Nyhus's careers. Now it's time to take a look at how Mike Binkley got started.

Looking back, Binkley says he thinks the nuns at his grade school deserve the credit for my interest in broadcasting. Each morning before school, all the kids went to Catholic mass.

Binkley says he seemed to get selected more than the other kids to do the daily reading. The nuns told him he "projected well."

After growing up and getting a degree in journalism, Binkley's first TV job fresh out of school was in his hometown of Topeka, Kan.

Interestingly enough, one of his co-workers there, Anne Rubenstein, was hired to work at WCCO-TV. She used to write Binkley letters about how great the Twin Cities were. Now Binkley is here to concur.