Red River College graduate Krista Erickson (Creative Communications, 1999) has been tapped to host the Sun News Network’s Canada Live, a hard-hitting headline news show that debuted earlier this week.

The Gemini-nominated TV reporter and anchor joined the Sun News team after 12 years with the CBC, where she began her career as an entry-level researcher, and later worked as the local evening news anchor and national parliamentary bureau correspondent.

“If I had to describe (Canada Live), it’s a contrarian take on the news events of the day with unexpected angles and points of view that you might not hear anywhere else,” Erickson recently said of the show.

“Sun News has been an incredible fit, and I feel more at ease and comfortable here than any other professional experience.”

Several decades’ worth of Creative Communications students gathered earlier this month to pay tribute to a colleague, mentor and friend: departing Red River College instructor Steve Vogelsang, who’ll be moving to British Columbia at the end of the school year.

The combined send-off and reunion, held at The Roblin Centre, drew upwards of 250 people — many of them current CreComm students who were taping their final “Live At Five” newscast of the year. The majority, however, were recent graduates who’d returned to thank Vogelsang for the impact he’s had on their careers.

“It was in second year that Steve said to me, ‘Martin — you should try anchoring,’” recalled recent CreComm grad Shannon Martin (pictured at right), who entered the program intending to study print journalism, but now works as Global Winnipeg’s late-night anchor.

“I didn’t want to do it, but I did — and I loved it. Steve was the turning point in my broadcasting career.”

Vogelsang joined the RRC team in 2002, following a long and distinguished career with CKY-TV (aka CTV Winnipeg). In the ensuing years, CreComm students have benefited greatly from his knowledge and experience, and from the countless curriculum-related initiatives (among them, the aforementioned “Live At Five” newscasts) he’s had a hand in implementing.

“Being able to share that experience with enthusiasm and humour has made him a favourite here on campus,” said RRC President Stephanie Forsyth.

Vogelsang, for his part, seemed genuinely touched by the tributes. While addressing those gathered, he referenced common qualities among the so-called mafia, including “a certain hunger, a certain desire, and certain self-destructive tendencies that cause you — against your better judgment — to put up with instructors like me.”

“When you survive something like that, you’re bound together with all those people who survived it right along with you,” he said. “That characteristic is what brings us together as alumni. It’s what makes it easier for me to go, because I’ll be taking that with me.”

Click here for more information on RRC’s Creative Communications program.