Behind the Scenes with Kevin

Good morning! Hope your week is going well so far. It's time to wrap up our Behind the Scenes blog series with some wise words from the one, the only, Kevin Hunsperger! Take it away, Kevin!

Behind the Scenes with Kevin

Kevin has spent 7 years at WSIL! He's reported for 13 years throughout his career.  

• Describe your daily routine...

My alarm goes off at 2:55 each morning. I brush my teeth, get dressed (I have my clothes picked out the night before), and hit the road. I shower and pack my lunch the night before too to maximize on my beauty sleep. Now that we're in HD, I need even more.

I arrive at work around 3:15. I check my email, Twitter, and Facebook for any overnight breaking stories or things that need updating. I also scour the wires for medical news. I produce the two medical blocks in the 5:30 and 6:30 shows and like to use fresh content that wasn't used the night before.

Emily, Weston, and I work together to write stories and decide on other content for the show. We usual discuss ideas as we go along too. During this process I always eat a bowl of plain oatmeal with blueberries and chocolate whey powder. I wash it down with a diet Mt. Dew. I don't like coffee, so the diet Mt. Dew is my caffeine boost for the day.

By about 5:15 I wander to the mirror and shave, brush my teeth again, and put on makeup. Yes, I wear makeup. Probably not enough though. Ha.

You all know the rest as you watch each morning. Emily and I work together on moderating the Cover it Live chat room and posting comments. After the show, we all meet to discuss the things that went right and wrong and then start planning for future shows.

Some days I then go out and report, or I just record my voice for a health story that's been provided by ABC or CNN that runs as our To Your Health segment at 5 p.m.

• What's the most stressful aspect of your job?

The most stressful times are when Emily isn't here and I'm setting up the chat and keeping an eye on things. Sometimes I get behind on posting comments and our dedicated Cover it Live chatters get a little impatient, but they've come to expect that from me.

• What's the most fun?

This job is so much fun. I have worked at WSIL for more than 7 years. I've been anchoring the morning show for almost 6 1/2 years. I love this shift and I love my coworkers. We have so much fun together, but when it's time to get serious, we do just that. Because this is a 90 minute show and it's in the morning there's more time to have a little (or a lot) of fun.

This past November Kevin showed southern Illinois what it feels like to be tased- live on the air!

His facial expression says it all.

• What's something viewers might be surprised to learn about the morning show?

Probably not too many other surprises for people to learn about, since I'm the last one to write a blog. But I can't tell you all how great this team gets along and looks forward to bringing you the news each morning.

• When did you first become interested in TV news?

I kinda fell into news by accident. Well, maybe not by accident, but it was not something I had studied in college. I went to Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. At that time (early 90's) there was no broadcasting department. I was majoring in Mass Communication with the intent of going into radio. I worked at the campus radio station, but there was a decline in enrollment and the introduction class got dropped. I wanted to stay on course and graduate on time, so I switched gears and did Corporate Video (which involves shooting video and editing). I had such a hard time with the editing that I quit that program. Now I do it all the time, ironic. I also did some reporting for the student newspaper. Anyway, since I had a little bit of everything under my belt, my degree is Mass Communication with an emphasis in Media Studies.

It was around the time I was graduating that I thought I'd try out the news thing. I got a job in St. Louis as a freelance newspaper reporter for the Suburban Journals. But I really wanted to go into broadcast journalism and was lucky enough to be hired as a "broadcast assistant" at KMOV. That was just a fancy title for TelePrompter operator. While I was there, I learned all I could about news and how things worked. I went out on stories with reporters and rewrote their scripts. I voiced packages and learned to edit. Then I knew that was what I wanted. After about 18 months of that I landed my first on air gig in tiny Florence, Alabama. The rest as they say, is history...

Thanks, Kevin!

Don't forget to tune in weekdays from 5:30 to 7:00 am for News 3 This Morning in HD!