Dave Dedrick
Dave Dedrick’s resume of a 52 year career is very short:
KELO-Land Television, period.
Dave was the first voice heard on television in South Dakota
on May 19, 1953 when he read the KELO sign-on. Since that
time, Dave continued to keep a watchful eye on the area’s
ever-changing weather, seeing KELO-Land through floods, drought,
and storms of every nature. But his main claim to fame isn’t
the fact that he was the morning man on KELO Radio or that
he was KELO’s weatherman for more than five decades.
His claim to fame is the time he spent in uniform - Dave Dedrick
was, and will always be, Captain 11.
The live kiddie show first aired on March 7, 1955, running
non-stop until the last show was taped on December 27, 1996.
It was the last of the breed and the longest continuously-running
children’s show in the country. To this day, people tell
Dave: “I was on Captain 11.” It was not uncommon
for those first kids to bring their children and their children’s
children to the show.
Dave, through Captain 11 programs and personal appearances
and weathercasts, laid the groundwork for KELO-Land as the
4 state institution it is to this day, tying far-flung and
sparsely populated areas of South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa
and Nebraska together. He was, and still is, immensely popular.
Dave’s broadcast career actually started at KELO Radio
in 1944 when he was 15 years old. After serving in the Marines
in World War II and Korea, he returned to Sioux Falls, and
KELO, to create Captain 11 and begin a career that touched
the lives of generations of KELO-Land children. In addition
to his on-air work, Dave made hundreds of personal appearances
at hospitals, hosed telethons, and visited small cities and
towns all over KELO-Land.
When Dave retired on December 30, 1996, it truly was the end
of an era. He is in the South Dakota Hall of Fame and his
set and memorabilia are on display at the State Historical
Museum in Pierre.
In later years, after AIDS touched his family, Dave became
a devoted volunteer at a group facility for people living
with AIDS in Sioux Falls. Dave, and his wife Marjean (“Mrs.
Captain 11”) still make their home in the Sioux Falls
area.
