Augsburg University Athletics

A member of Augsburg softball teams that won the MAIAW Division III state championship three times and earned a second-place regional finish and 13^th-place national championship finish in 1982, Helmke was a key player at second base for the Auggies for three seasons. Teams Helmke played on finished 63-27 during her career. Helmke was also a key “behind-the-scenes” worker, promoting Augsburg’s women’s athletics program through her work in the college’s sports information office, as a student assistant in the women’s athletic department, as a student representative to the MAIAW, and as a writer for the Augsburg Now, student newspaper and the yearbook. After graduating, she helped develop the Augsburg Women’s Athletic Club (AWAC) for alumni and was one of the first women to serve on the Augsburg A-Club board. Academically, Helmke earned degrees in communication and physical education from Augsburg.  After an internship at WTCN Television (now KARE-11) in 1983, she was hired by the station as a sports producer and occasional reporter/anchor  and in fact was the Twin Cities first female sports anchor.  She was later promoted to a special projects producer in 1989 and was named that station’s managing editor in 1996. She has earned numerous state, regional and national awards for her television work, and has produced two documentaries on girls and women in athletics that have been incorporated into curriculum in Minnesota schools.   She has also been honored as a “Pioneer in Women’s Sports” by the Minnesota Lynx WNBA team. Helmke and her partner, Teresa Sterns, have two children, Keegan and Grace.  They live in St. Paul, Minnesota.