WQPT was honored on Saturday, September 30, 2023, at the Mid-America Emmy Awards, taking home a prestigious Emmy for their locally written and produced historical documentary, Snapshots: Your Dutch Friend.

This documentary tells the story of how two young sisters, Juanita and Betty Wagner of Danville, Iowa became pen pals with Anne Frank and her sister Margo, just as Amsterdam was occupied by Nazi Germany on May 10, 1940. The letters that united these four young girls are now owned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, CA. The Station Museum in Danville, Iowa, is the only remote location where the Wiesenthal Center allows copies of the original letters to be displayed.

This Emmy Award winning documentary was written and produced by Lora Adams-Kopriva, WQPT’s recently retired Director of Local content. “It’s important to recognize and acknowledge the documentary’s editor/ videographer, Chris Ryder,” said Lora Adams, “Chris originally brought this story to my attention. We created this together.”

WQPT is proud to have been the station to air other local documentaries that have been nominated as well. Once WQPT has aired a film, the filmmaker then has the opportunity to place that film for Emmy consideration. In addition to WQPT, this year Fourth Wall Films (four time Emmy winners with two nominations this year) and New Mile Media Arts, also received Emmy nominations.

In addition to this year’s winning documentary, WQPT also received a nomination for their locally written and produced documentary Snapshots: Norma Jean, the Elephant, also written and produced by Lora Adams-Kopriva, with editing and writing by Chris Ryder.

“I’m thrilled to see Lora and Chris recognized for their exceptional talent,” said Dawn Schmitt, WQPT’s General Manager. “Congratulations to them for this well-deserved recognition of telling the stories of our region.”

As a public media service of Western Illinois University, WQPT PBS actively serves a diverse audience throughout the West Central Illinois and Eastern Iowa region. To view these nominated programs online, visit WQPT.org/snapshots

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Sean Leary Director of Digital Media

Sean Leary is an author, director, artist, musician, producer and entrepreneur who has been writing professionally since debuting at age 11 in the pages of the Comics Buyers Guide. An honors graduate of the University of Southern California masters program, he has written over 50 books including the best-sellers The Arimathean, Every Number is Lucky to Someone and We Are All Characters.