Education

Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved quite a bit in her school years to Charlotte, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina and Farmington, Minnesota, where Dawn graduated from Farmington High School. Stensland-Mendte earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Minnesota, where she was president of the school's Society of Professional Journalists chapter.

Career

Stensland started her television career at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, when she earned the one paid internship that the station awards every year. She was hired as a producer and anchor at WREX-TV in Rockford, Illinois, and at WKOW-TV in Madison, Wisconsin, where she also hosted the Sunday morning political talk show, "Capitol City Sunday."

She was the main anchor at WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, before being hired by WBBM-TV, the CBS owned-and-operated station in Chicago, where she was an anchor and reporter. Next, she was hired by WKYC-TV in Cleveland to co-anchor the 6 and 11 o'clock newscasts.^[1]

Philadelphia

Stensland-Mendte is best known for her anchoring in Philadelphia. From 1997 to 2000, she co-anchored the 5 and 6 o'clock newscasts with Ukee Washington and Larry Kane at KYW-TV, CBS's Philadelphia outlet. While she was at KYW-TV, Stensland-Mendte also co-hosted CBS News Saturday Morning with Russ Mitchell.^[2] In 2000, she was hired by WTXF-TV, the Fox owned and operated station in Philadelphia, to be the main anchor. Stensland-Mendte anchored the award winning, top rated 10 o'clock newscast for nearly a decade.^[3]

Since 2010, Stensland-Mendte has been the TV spokesperson for Dreambaby child safety products, manufactured by the Australian Company Tee-Zed.^[4] In September, 2012, Stensland-Mendte started hosting her own talk show, "A New Dawn," on WMCN-TV, a ShopHQ-affiliated station with studios in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia.^[5] In March, 2013 WMCN changed the name of the show to simply "Dawn."

Stensland-Mendte is now heard on WPHT talk radio as the news anchor of the Rich Zeoli morning show, and hosting the 10 a.m. to noon slot.^[6] She can also be seen as a featured reporter and host on Jersey Matters, a public affairs show at WJLP-TV in Freehold, New Jersey.^[7]

Congress

In 2010, Stensland-Mendte made headlines in Philadelphia when she was approached to run as a Republican in Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district. She would have run in a primary against Pat Meehan, who was the U.S. Attorney, overseeing the case against her husband. After a flurry of new reports and columns, Stensland-Mendte decided not to run.^[8]

Family

Stensland-Mendte has been married to Larry Mendte since 2000. Together, they have two children, both sons; Michael was born in 2004, and David was born in 2006. She is also a step-mom to Mendte’s two adult children, Stacia and Jonathan, from a previous relationship.