20 for 20: Dudley Family (2016)

To celebrate our 20th anniversary of Lakeland News, we’re taking a look back at some of the memorable local stories we’ve covered over the years. We’re calling it 20 For 20 – twenty stories in all, one for each of the twenty years we’ve been on the air with Lakeland News.

One of the things we really enjoy doing on our newscast is highlighting the extraordinary things people in our community are doing. Just before Christmas in 2016, our Haydee Clotter brought us a look at the Dudley family, who lives near Bemidji. Over the years, the Dudleys have adopted numerous medically fragile, special needs children from the United States foster care system.

Since that story aired, the Dudleys have adopted four more children who they had been taking care of through medical foster care. Shantell Dudley, mother of the adopted children, tells us they were also approached by a production company in Hollywood to produce a show on their family for the TLC cable and satellite network. The Dudleys have since decided as a family to not proceed with the idea of the show.

The reporter for that story, Haydee Clotter, has recently been a reporter for KQDS-TV in Duluth, MN.