Al Joens

Al calls Manilla, Iowa his hometown. He grew up on a farm there, but in his younger years, he also lived in Houston, Los Angeles and New Orleans as his father's job kept his family moving around the country.

Al joined KTIV as a reporter after graduating from Buena Vista University in Storm Lake in 1985. Over the years, he's served as anchor of the weekend, noon, morning and evening newscasts.

Among the accomplishments of which he is most proud in his years at KTIV are Emmy Awards for Outstanding Noon Newscast in 2009 and Outstanding Morning Newscast in 2014 and 2015. He's also received numerous awards from the Iowa Broadcast News Association including 1st place for Feature Reporting five years in a row.

In 2008, he married KTIV coworker, Melissa Lanzourakis. She now works for the city of Sioux City. Together, they enjoy the occasional bicycle ride through the Siouxland countryside. Al has been riding RAGBRAI since 1976 and has managed to get Melissa bitten by the RAGBRAI bug. They've ridden their tandem road bike across Iowa on RAGBRAI several times.

Their three grown children, Philip, Rachel and Kevin keep them busy as well.

Email Al at ajoens@ktiv.com.