2009 Inductee
We know her as the News Director for 9News in Denver, as a highly-respected news professional with a healthy sense of competition and a keen eye for talent, who has helped keep her station at the top of the ratings for decades. She is the definition of relentless hard work, leading by example, and inspiring peers and co-workers with the motivation to exceed their own best efforts.
Patti Dennis grew up in Oklahoma, graduating from the University of Oklahoma, where she likes to point out that she took two years of meteorology – giving her just enough information to be dangerous. She started her broadcast career over 30 years ago at KOCO, as a studio camera operator and weather map-cleaner. From there she moved to KDFW in Dallas; in 1981 she came to KUSA where her energy and vision, and complete commitment to news, has moved her to the position she now holds: Vice President/News Director.
As both the head of the newsroom and a member of management, Patti’s coworkers speak highly of her ability to respond to the challenges faced by the industry today: contracting budgets, shrinking staff, buyouts, furloughs and emerging technologies. Patti embraces change, and continues to lead her organization into the future. She is a graceful and respectful competitor, quick to initiate cooperation among the local news stations when it will serve the greater good.
Her most important job is outside the station, as she and her husband, Tim, raise two teenage-plus daughters. During their school years she managed her time meticulously, leaving work to attend an important game with them, then rushing back to the newsroom.
A long list of adjectives describe Patti: smart, aggressive, tough, fair, compassionate, creative, ethical, reliable, organized, combined with a seemingly endless supply of energy, and that rare ability to keep a staff of one hundred people headed in the same direction every day. Her legacy also includes a reputation for wise-cracks and snappy comebacks, and a suspicion that her DNA may be made up almost entirely of news genes.