Kevin Rollason

Reporter

Very few kids grow up to get their dream job; Kevin Rollason is one of the lucky ones.

Kevin was in elementary school — in the era of All the President’s Men, Lou Grant and, yes, even Kolchak: The Night Stalker — when he decided he wanted to be a journalist.

Whether it is covering city hall, the law courts, or general reporting, Kevin can be counted on to not only answer the 5 Ws — Who, What, When, Where and Why — but to do it in an interesting and accessible way for readers.

A typical shift for Kevin could see him interviewing the premier or mayor and then reporting on a homicide.

In past years, Kevin helmed the paper’s annual Pennies from Heaven campaign to help feed the hungry during the Christmas season.

Kevin won a National Newspaper Award in 2015 for his coverage of the inquest into the death of Brian Sinclair, and shared a citation of merit from the NNA in 2005 for coverage of a fatal crash of a Fedex plane in Winnipeg.

During his career he has been named medical reporter of the year in 2014 by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, and received the 2015 Hollobon Award for excellence in medical reporting from the Health Care Public Relations Association Canada.

He also received an honourable mention in the 2015 Canadian Hillman Prize in Journalism, was nominated for a Canadian Association of Journalists award, and received the Golden Hand Award from Volunteer Manitoba. He has received honours from the Canadian Medical Association, Thompson Newspapers, the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities, and the Huntington Disease Association.

Kevin was lauded by the Canadian Newspaper Association’s annual Great Ideas category in 2009 for his annual end-of-year obituary feature.

He writes the Free Press’s weekly Passages newsletter, highlighting the great lives lived by Manitobans.