Hometown: Fort Wayne, Indiana

High School: R. Nelson Snider High School

College: Indiana University (Bloomington)

Other Journalism Experience: WKJG-TV (Formerly NBC in Fort Wayne), KSDK-TV (Internship in St. Louis), WANE-TV (Internship in Fort Wayne)

Started at Channel 3 on: August 17, 1997

Q: What is your favorite part about living in Madison?
A: Love the lakes!

Q: What is the biggest news story that you've covered?
A: The Stoughton tornado, or Wisconsin presidential primaries. As a sports person: Two Rose Bowls, Final 4, Ron Dayne’s Heisman.

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: Anything with my wife and two sons.

Q: What is your family life like? Significant other, married, children?
A: Married to Kim since 2004, two boys, and a Yellow Labrador.

Q: What is your favorite kind of ice cream?
A: Cookie dough

Q: What is your favorite place to vacation?
A: Duck, North Carolina, or Mexican beaches

Q: Who is your hero and why?
A: My late father, because he let me believe I could do anything!

Q: What was your favorite band when you were in high school?
A: Pearl Jam

Q: What is your favorite sport to play or watch?
A: College football to watch, basketball and baseball to play

Q: If you could possess one superhuman power, what would it be?
A: The ability to fly

Q: What are you really bad at that you’d love to be great at?
A: Golf, and I am really bad.

Q: What is your most memorable travel experience?
A: Honeymoon with my wife, to Cabo San Lucas, or a 1982 family trip to Cape Cod.

Q: What is the worst job you have ever had?
A: Trimming rubber moldings off pistons at Bluffton Rubber Company for 1 day in the summer of 1994.

Q: Who would you most like to interview alive or dead, and why?
A: My late father – so I could introduce him to his two grandsons.

Q: What is your favorite tradition around the holidays?
A: Seeing my two boys’ faces on Christmas morning.

Q: What is your favorite song of all time?
A: The Notre Dame Victory March (lifelong fan of the Irish)

Q: What is your favorite movie of all time?
A: Wedding Crashers, Hoosiers, Gladiator, Shawshank Redemption

Q: What is your favorite book of all time?
A: Season on the Brink (John Feinstein), The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom)

Q: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
A: Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

Q: If you could relive any moment, what would that be?
A: The first time I held both of my two boys.

Q: Where were you when Sept. 11, 2001 occurred?
A: At home in Madison with the TV off, my dad called me to tell me what was happening. No sports that day (and back then I was sports director), so I came into work and answered phones, did anything to help on a very busy day.

E-mail Eric at efranke@wisctv.com.