Jason DeRusha
Jason DeRusha filed his first report for WCCO-TV on April Fool’s Day in 2003. Since then, he’s earned five Emmy Awards, the Jaycees named him one of the Ten Outstanding Young Minnesotans, and the city of Minneapolis proclaimed Sept. 21 “Jason DeRusha Day.” No fooling.
Today, Jason co-anchors “WCCO This Morning” weekdays from 4:30 a.m. until 7:00 a.m. and “WCCO News At Noon” with Jamie Yuccas. He is also the station’s food reporter, producing “DeRusha Eats” for WCCO Saturday Morning.
While at WCCO, he was among the first television reporters on the scene and on-the-air at the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. He’s covered flash flooding, tornadoes and school shootings. He answered “Good Question” for 5½ years. In 2013, he was named one of the “40 under 40,” the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal’s list of young community leaders.
Minnesota Monthly named him to the “Power 75″ list, writing, “If anyone understands where mass media is going … it’s DeRusha.”
Marquette University named him the Young Alumnus of the Year in 2012.
Before coming to WCCO-TV, Jason spent three years as a reporter at WISN-TV in Milwaukee. Prior to that, he anchored the weekend news at KWQC-TV in Davenport, Iowa, reported for WREX-TV in Rockford, Ill. and interned at “ABC World News Tonight” in New York.
Jason’s been nominated for 15 Regional Emmy Awards, and he’s won Regional Emmys for Anchoring coverage of the 2010 blizzard, Online Personality (twice), Health Reporting, and On-Going Feature Series.
In the Twin Cities, Jason serves as President of the Board of Governors of the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He’s a frequent speaker and host for charity fundraisers.
He joined Minnesota Monthly as a food/wine columnist in 2009, and now writes for Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine as a contributing editor. Jason’s a glass art collector, and he’s been a judge for the Uptown Art Fair. He’s also tried to blow a couple glass art pieces, with limited success.
Jason graduated from the Honors program at Marquette University with political science and broadcast communication degrees, magna cum laude. Jason lives in Maple Grove with his wife Alyssa (a Wayzata High graduate), and their sons Seth and Sam.
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Intelligent Nutrients Thriving After Family Crisis
Intelligent Nutrients is the natural healthy and beauty business founded by the legendary Minneapolis man who started Aveda. But when Horst Rechelbacher died in February his wife and daughter had to mourn, and then get the company back to work.
DeRusha Eats: Mpls. Public Schools’ True Food Chef Council
At Steven Brown’s award-winning Tilia in south Minneapolis, you won’t find mac and cheese on the “Cootie Catcher” kids’ menu. The shrimp fried rice is good, real, scratch cooking. But Brown’s making good kids’ food inside and out of his restaurant.
Suburban Spotlight: Jason Heads To Plymouth
This week in our Suburban Spotlight series, Mike Augustyniak went to Inver Grove Heights, Jamie Yuccas checked out Eden Prairie and Natalie Nyhus headed east to Grant. To finish up the series, Jason DeRusha was no stranger to where his dart landed: Plymouth.
DeRusha Eats: Pittsburgh Blue
You might not expect Executive Chef Brad Berg to be searing scallops at Pittsburgh Blue. “I guess sometimes I’m surprised we do sell a lot of seafood here,” Berg said.
Behind The Music: Children’s Hospital’s ‘Brave’ Cover
From the moment the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital’s nurses and patients unveiled their version of Sara Bareilles’ song “Brave,” it was sure to go viral. But Brittany Bloemke and Natalie Snyder never knew it would be this big.
Blazing Research Trails At ‘U’ Children’s Hospital
When you send your child to a hospital that specializes in children’s care, you expect to have the best doctors and nurses working on the case. You may not expect teams of researchers to be working on more than 200 different grants and contracts.
DeRusha Eats: Angie’s BoomChickaPop
Inside a non-descript industrial building in Mankato, a snack that’s thousands of years old is getting a new look. Angie and Dan Bastian started popping kettle corn as a couple in 2001. “It’s amazing when you think about we started all of this by hand, we popped by hand, we bagged by hand, we did everything by hand,” Angie said.
DeRusha Eats: Al Vento, Rinata & Sparks
It was nearly ten years ago when Chef Jonathan Hunt opened an Italian restaurant in the Nokomis neighborhood of Minneapolis. The city has changed. “There’s definitely a lot more restaurants and I think that [the] diner has changed as well,” Hunt said. “We’ve been able to educate.”
DeRusha Eats: Brake Bread
Inside a St. Paul commercial kitchen, two friends are forming more than just loaves of bread. Micah Taylor is a web designer, and Nate Houge is a songwriter. Together, they form Brake Bread. “Bread is all about, like, time and tension and finding out the balance between them,” Houge said.
DeRusha Eats: The Bachelor Farmer
If the first thing you think of when you hear “Swedish chef” is the Muppets character, then maybe you need to start thinking of Paul Berglund. He has a picture of his felt counterpart in the kitchen of the Bachelor Farmer, the red-hot North Loop Minneapolis restaurant. “A liver pate is one of my favorite things,” Berglund said.
DeRusha Eats: Pizza Nea
The fire burns 750-degrees hot at Pizza Nea in northeast Minneapolis. But owner Mike Sherwood’s carefully-crafted dough is really what makes his pizza special. “I probably went through 150 pounds of flour before we got the crust the way I wanted it to be,” Sherwood said.
DeRusha Eats: Way Better Snacks
With names like “Naked Blues,” “Sweet Potato” and “Simply Sriracha,” the chips of Way Better Snacks are way different from anything you’ve tried before. Jim Breen graduated high school and college in the Twin Cities, worked on the East Coast for food companies and is now growing his own food brand in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis.
DeRusha Eats: My Burger
A Twin Cities family’s burger chain is ready to really get cooking. My Burger started in the Minneapolis skyways almost ten years ago. Now there are three locations, with plans for even more. John Abdo, president of My Burger, says Americans have had a love affair with the hamburger for more than 100 years. “Everybody remembers burgers and fries as a kid,” Abdo said. “When you’re eating, it always harkens back to … backyard grilling.”
CEO Success: Bill Cooper At TCF Bank
They have $18 billion in assets and 430 branches. Most in the Twin Cities know what used to be called Twin Cities Financial. TCF Bank is headquartered in Wayzata and does business in 50 states. For nearly 30 years, the same man has been in the top office at TCF.
Twin Cities CEO Profile: Great Clips’ Rhoda Olsen
Minnesota is the home of 19 Fortune 500 companies. All week, the WCCO Morning Show is taking a look at some of the people in the Twin Cities who’ve made it to the top. Rhoda Olsen is the CEO of Great Clips, which is headquartered in Bloomington.
