Don't fret: Celebrity alumni do get coverage

Many people know that some pretty famous people have graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College and Minnesota State University.

A guy from MSU is on the TV show "Reno 911," for example. Peter Breitmayer, mentioned in a previous blog entry, is a Gusty grad with film credits to his name including Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" and the Coen brothers' "A Serious Man." Rich Sommer, on AMC's award-winning "Mad Men," is married to a Mankato West grad and had a red carpet premiere right here in Mankato for his film with Meryl Streep, "The Devil Wears Prada."

We've written about these people at various times. Sometimes we'll put a blurb in the paper when they have a new series or movie coming out. But -- because they don't live in the area anymore, and often times, didn't live in our coverage area for very long -- we don't do features on them every time they have a new project. Partly because that would mean writing about them every few months or so, when a new movie comes out or a new pilot is shot.

This topic came up in the newsroom Tuesday when a reader called in wondering why she read about Peter Krause's new series, "Parenthood," in the TV section of the newspaper. It was a national story, not written by The Free Press, of course, that mentioned a local tie Krause had to southern Minnesota.

Krause was in HBO's "Six Feet Under," which was the first time we wrote about him. He also visited Gustavus and worked with theater students. We went to interview him and do a story on him at that time. Since then, he has been on two shows, "The Lost Room" and "Dirty Sexy Money" (wrote a blurb about that). And in addition to "Parenthood," he has two forthcoming projects, "Beastly" and "The Book of Matthew."

With so much going on, the question has to be raised: How often do we write about the same person who, at one time, lived in southern Minnesota but does not now? If it's for every project he works on, we'd have to write about Mr. Krause an awful lot, thereby foregoing coverage of someone (or a group) who is local now and producing local entertainment now.

Certainly, Gustavus and MSU have a lot to be proud of when it comes to their successful alumni. And Peter Krause is one of them. Hopefully, there weren't too many surprised readers when they saw the TV section with Krause on the cover and wondered where the local coverage was. Don't worry, he's been no stranger to our paper.