This just in: Tabern at the Inter-County Leader

In northwest Wisconsin, near the Minnesota border, there's a little town named Frederic.

There, and wherever else news happens for miles around, Robert Tabern is on top of it.

Tabern, 43, Glenbrook North High School Class of 1997, recently was hired as the editor of the Inter-County Leader. He's the publication's sixth editor since its 1933 founding as a cooperative paper for area farmers.

The Inter-County Leader covers events in Wisconsin's Barron, Burnett, Polk and Washburn counties.

Tabern and his wife, Kandace, live in Barron. They dated in college, went their separate ways, then rediscovered each other on Facebook. In October, they will celebrate 10 years of marriage.

With a population of around 1,100 people, Frederic is nearly equidistant from Minneapolis to the southwest and Superior to the north, 90-plus miles away in either case.

It's Robert and two part-time reporters handling the Inter-County Leader's 60 square miles of terrain. Other small-town papers closed down. Television news doesn't come out there much, and they're a ways away.

"There's literally no competition here," Tabern said. "If we don't cover a story, it doesn't get covered."

This is the man for the job.

"I like telling other people's stories," Tabern said.

He's another product of the Glenbrook schools' broadcasting program, and also of Glenbrook North's student paper, Torch.

"Probably the last paper I worked at," he said.

He was on the air at 88.5 FM when District 225 bought WMWA from the Glenview New Church and the radio station became WGBK. Tabern also co-hosted a variety show, "Tabern Live," on GBN-TV.

His best buddy from high school, Alexander Rubinow, was his co-host. Now in Los Angeles, Rubinow won an Emmy Award in 2015 as an editor for the Discovery reality series "Deadliest Catch," and this year was nominated for his third overall.

Rubinow will find out if he won Sept. 3 at the first of two 2022 Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies.

"I kind of went the news route, he went into entertainment," Tabern said.

Until the pandemic, Tabern returned annually to WGBK's daylong Radiothon. He still returns monthly to see his mother, Rita, in Niles, and his father, Thomas, still in the Northbrook home where Robert grew up. His parents divorced long ago.

Robert Tabern credits his high school instructors, the retired Peg Holecek and Vince Pinelli.

"If it wasn't for Glenbrook North and those two teachers, Peg and Vince, I probably would have gone into something else," said Tabern, adding, "eternally grateful."

At Glenbrook North he won WBBM contests in back-to-back years for high school news reporting, earning a pair of $500 scholarships and the chance to shadow reporters at Channel 2 and WBBM Newsradio.

Through his own diligence in investigating college broadcasting programs and weighing his options, those scholarships became the cherry on top when Arkansas State University provided Tabern with a partial scholarship. Once in the door, he jumped right in with Arkansas State's college radio station, KASU, which is affiliated with National Public Radio.

Mainly at KASU, but also part-time at a couple other stations, he was both on-air talent and a producer. Also, for three years he produced news at ABC-TV affiliate KAIT in Jonesboro. Plus, of course, he attended classes.

At 18, late in Tabern's freshman year, two armed students, 11 and 13, of Westside Middle School outside Jonesboro shot and killed four classmates and a teacher and injured others. Covering that for KASU, he was among the first on the scene. Working alongside national reporters such as Ted Koppel, Tabern helped produce news reports for ABC and CNN.

Following his graduation, he produced news at television stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana, then in Milwaukee. His career took a turn when he became the communications specialist for the police and fire departments of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, - dealing with another shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek.

Then it was back with another television station in Milwaukee for nearly two years until an interest in travel produced another sharp turn - as a tour coordinator for a company in Elm Grove, Wisconsin.

Almost simultaneously, Tabern established the Midwest Rail Rangers Corporation, a nonprofit that presents educational programs on historic trains throughout seven states in the upper Midwest. He and Kandace have co-authored a book, "Wisconsin Great Northern's Sky Parlour," and numerous guides on train routes in and out of Chicago. Tabern remains president of the Rail Rangers.

He and Kandace finally ventured up to northwest Wisconsin when, in 2019, Robert took a job doing marketing and communications and, really, much, much more for the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad in Trego, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from Barron as the crow flies.

But at heart, he's a news man.

He's determined to keep the Inter-County Leader afloat in dangerous times for print media, but one of his strengths is the visual aspect he brings from years in broadcasting.

His goal is to bulk up the Inter-County Leader's website. Part of the strategy is producing videos to accompany stories or to lead coverage. His work already is evident.

"That's the future," Tabern said.

The Northbrook native has learned about farming and agriculture and, as he said, "about other people's perspectives."

He writes straight down the middle.

"My slant is reporting the facts, not putting in my slant or my decisions, and letting people make the decisions on it."