Larry Hatteberg Speaks to His People at Dillon Lecture Series

By Torie Price
Opinion Page Editor
IG: torielprice

Larry Hatteberg, one of KAKE’s most beloved and well-known multimedia journalists, spoke at the latest Dillon Lecture Series that took place on Tuesday at Stringer Fine Arts Center, as the Barbara Pierce Memorial lecturer.

Hatteberg, known for his show “Hatteberg’s People”, knew he wanted to work in television since 1957, when he was in the seventh grade in Winfield, when he saw a story about school desegregation in Arkansas.

“The story was Governor Orville Faubus,” Hatteberg said, “standing on the steps of Little Rock High School, denying nine Black children entrance.”

That would put him on the path he would follow for the next 69 years.

“It was a moment in history, and I was looking at that live as those cameras picked it all up. It was that day that I decided I wanted to go into journalism because to see historic events actually occur in front of you, what could be better?” Hatteberg said.

That passion for television journalism that had been lit within Hatteberg led him to being introduced to the founder and news director from KAKE, which is now ABC’s Wichita affiliate. The four months that followed this chance meeting were full of Hatteberg consistently showing up at the station and pestering the management in charge, until he was eventually given a job.

Hatteberg, who was making $1.50 an hour, describes this time in his life as seventh heaven.

“I would’ve worked at that television station for nothing.” Hattiberger said.

Throughout the years, he proved his tenacity and talent, eventually being given his own franchise in 1974, a little over a decade after he was hired.

The 10 p.m. news on Sunday nights was forever changed after that day in 1974 because “Hatteberg’s People” was born.

Throughout his illustrious career with KAKE, Hatteberg interviewed thousands of people.

“Over the course of time, the ‘Hatteberg’s People’ developed roughly 2,000 stories,” Hatteberg said.

He describes being changed and taught by everyone he featured.

Hatteberg spoke about being overcome by a woman who fostered with her husband 60 children for 60 years.

Hatteberg spoke about her caring nature and kindness. He described her mannerisms and home. He told the crowd about what he saw, felt, and heard, drawing them in and painting the picture as if they too were in that antique farmhouse.

Hatteberg covered these people not because they were glamorous or famous, but because they were common.

“Here is somebody who saw a need in a community and made a difference,” he said when speaking about the foster family and the impact the woman made, not because she was asked to, but because she could.

He was also mentored by Ernest Dittemore, someone who was perhaps more mole than man. After having his house burnt down, Dittemore spent 40 years living in a hole in the ground of his 80-acre property, every day watching both the sunrise and the sunset.

“Ernie was one of those people you meet once in a lifetime … I put him as one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met in my life,” Hatteberg said about Dittemore.

He chose a simple, eccentric life but was incredibly happy. Hatteberg spoke about the lessons Dittemore taught him during their day together, walking through the woods that encompassed Dittemore’s property.

“I loved being with that man; I really did. Because I was learning so much about life, and that’s the reason I do these stories,” Hatteberg said.

“I love people because of what they teach me. They don’t know they’re teaching anything. They are.”

Hatteberg retired in 2014 after 51 years with KAKE, but his stories still live on through him and his former co-anchor Susan Peters, continuing “Hatteberg’s People” on PBS Kansas, and on YouTube.

“To this very day, I do watch the sunrise, and I do watch the sunset,” Hatteberg said, taking a page out of Dittemore’s book and no doubt possessing many more pages from many more of Hatteberg’s people.

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