In 1986 at the age of 18, Albert Lea High School graduate Dave Aeikens was all set to go to the Brown Institute in Minneapolis to pursue his dream — a career in radio.

He had worked with sports announcer Mike Sullivan at KATE-AM in Albert Lea and knew all sorts of sports trivia. It was a job he wanted to do ever since he was a kid.

But he chickened out. And he doesn’t really know why.

Now Aeikens, a reporter at the St. Cloud Times, is the president of the Society of Professional Journalists, a national organization of journalists with about 9,000 members. As the most broad-based and largest of journalism trade organizations, it represents journalists in newspaper, TV, radio, magazines, Internet and other media.

“I never thought it would be possible that someone from Albert Lea or someone from a small, mid-size daily in central Minnesota would lead the largest journalist organization in the country,” he said.

Aeikens went to Mankato State University — now Minnesota State University, Mankato — not knowing what he wanted to be. A time came to fill out a form and he had to write down is major. He wrote “print journalism.”

He didn’t stay at MSU. He ended up following a friend to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, where he obtained a degree in journalism from with a minor in political science.

There, he served a year as president of the SPJ chapter in St. Thomas.

Some in Albert Lea might recall he worked from 1991 to 1993 as a reporter for the Albert Lea Tribune. Some even might know he graduated from Albert Lea High School in 1986, played on the varsity golf team and worked on the student newspaper and yearbook. He is the son of Leo and Sara Aeikens, who live on Vine Street.

Aeikens left the Albert Lea Tribune in February 1993 to work at the West Central Tribune in Willmar. For seven months he worked nights and weekends.

“It was a horrible experience. I hated it,” he said, “but I still managed to learn some things and improve myself.”

He interviewed for a reporter job at the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D., and the editor gave his name to the editor at the St. Cloud Times. Both are Gannett papers. Aeikens at the Times interviewed for a job as the suburbs reporter and the editors gave him a job as schools reporter, thanks to his experience covering schools in Albert Lea.

For four years he held that post before transferring to a key role at any newspaper — the state capitol reporter.

For two years he lived and worked in St. Paul. It helped that the lieutenant governor, Joanne Benson, was from St. Cloud and the chief of staff, Bernie Omann, was from Sartell, a St. Cloud suburb.

But the best story from his days in St. Paul has nothing to do with politics.

Age: 40

Address: St. Cloud

Livelihood: schools reporter for St. Cloud Times; president of Society of Professional Journalists

Family: single; son of Leo and Sara Aeikens of albert Lea

Interesting fact: Dave Aeikens knows Ferris State is in Big Rapids, Mich.

In 1997, the Minnesota Golden Gophers men’s basketball team made it to the Final Four. Aeikens’ editors, on deadline, dispatched him to get a quote from player Russ Archambault of Sartell at big pep rally for fans at Williams Arena.

The locker room was closed, so Aeikens waited. When they came out, they paraded onto the floor. Williams has a raised floor, and there was rope around the floor. What to do?

Aeikens stepped onto the floor, climbed over the rope, strolled out to center court and struck up a conversation with Archambault.

“Here’s me, standing in front of 15,000 people asking him questions,” Aeikens said.

Nobody told him to leave, and coach Clem Haskins was talking to fans over the sound system.

When he was done, Aeikens walked off the court, then phoned in his quotes.

He worked as a general assignment reporter for a year, then he felt like he needed a switch. He told editors to think about him if they were needing an interim editor.

They posted him as the acting government editor. When then-Executive Editor Susie Ihne needed a night editor, she asked Aeikens.

Again, he was working late hours. From 1999 to 2003, he worked from 1 p.m. to midnight.

He proofed pages, supervised reporters, assigned breaking news, did second edits, among the many roles editors play.

After four years, he was worn out; he returned to normal hours as the schools reporter and has been since.

“I’m one of those guys who likes to do something different every four or five years or so,” Aeikens said.

It’s his even keel that colleagues find striking, said St. Cloud Times Assistant Managing Editor Mike Knaak.

“The thing about Dave is his attitude toward ethics and fairness. They are pretty much at the top of the list,” Knaak said.

Aeikens can be hard on sources but fair, too, he said. He spoke about his skills at gathering facts swiftly and about his passion for open records and open meetings.

Through the years, he had been part of the Minnesota chapter for the Society of Professional Journalists. He told himself he would run for president of the Minnesota chapter someday. He had seen Cathy Wurzer of Minnesota Public Radio serve as state president.

Aeikens got elected to the board in 1996 and a year later ran for president-elect behind KARE anchor Rick Kupchella. Aeikens served a year as president at the state SPJ chapter for the 1998-99 term.

He then ran as a regional director and served from 1999 to 2005. As a regional director, he was on the national board. He thought that was the highest he would go in the organization. Running for president wasn’t a consideration.

“Not in a million years, I thought. It never crossed my mind,” Aeikens said.

In New York, there was talk about redistricting. The SPJ leaders split into two camps. Aeikens began chatting with the president, asking, “Wasn’t there some way we can find some middle ground on this?”

Then Aeikens brokered a deal on the issue in a hotel room. The move garnered attention from other directors and gave him the confidence to run.

In 2006 he began plotting his move. The president appointed him to lead the Legal Defense Fund, a highly visible position in SPJ. He decided not to wait any longer.

Each step of the way, he had support from the Times, so again he asked and received support. He then ran for secretary-treasurer. In SPJ, the secretary-treasurer usually automatically becomes president-elect, though sometimes faces an opponent. The president-elect does automatically become president.

So the big race usually is the secretary-treasurer race. Aeikens faced two opponents: from Cincinnati and San Francisco.

“I spent a lot of time making phone calls lining up support,” he said.

He found support from the Minnesota chapter members and made his “I like Aeik” buttons, which were catchy and helped people pronounce his last name correctly. “I like Ike” was a slogan successfully used by President Eisenhower.

The campaign cost Aeikens $75, but he won 58 percent of the vote.

The key, he said, was getting the list of delegates and meeting almost all of them. He stood outside the convention in Chicago near the registration desk for three straight days shaking everyone’s hands.

“What I wanted to have was them to get in the booth and remember they had met that guy,” Aeikens said. “No doubt I was the favorite going into it, but I had to deliver. I worked my tail off.”

He became secretary-treasurer in 2006, then he was elected president-elect in 2007. In September 2008, he became president, and, what’s more, April 17 of this year is the 100th anniversary for the Society of Professional Journalists.

One of Aeikens’ goals is improving media credibility, which includes a series of town-hall meetings. One takes place in Minneapolis on April 30. Another goal is getting SPJ to be a leader in professional development for journalists.

“We want to be known for training,” he said.

Aeikens’ roles give him a busy year. One day Aeikens will be in St. Cloud covering Vice President Joe Biden’s visit for the Times and another he will be in Washington, D.C., advocating for a national shield law and another he will be in Albert Lea watching the Gophers on television with his father, Leo.

Leo is proud of his son being SPJ president.

“Most people don’t want to touch anything like that,” he said. “He’s kind of the opposite of me. I don’t want to step out of my way to take extra duties like that.”

Leo recalled when Dave as a boy would mimic the radio broadcasts and how he eventually came to know the KATE staff.

“I really thought he was going to get into sports reporting,” Leo said.

He said Albert Lea had the attributes for things Dave liked as a kid and getting to know the radio station is something he couldn’t have done in a big city.

To this day, Leo can ask a question — what’s the location of Ferris State? — and Dave knows the answer.

Knaak said the St. Cloud Times’ editors and publisher have supported Aeikens as SPJ president. John Bodette is the executive editor these days. Gannett run ads in many journalism trade magazines featuring Aeikens’ image and touting the company’s support for SPJ and for journalism.

“He couldn’t have run for the national and regional offices without the support he has here,” Knaak said.

SPJ President-elect Kevin Smith, a professor at Fairmont State University in West Virginia, said he enjoys working with Aeikens and said they discuss issues facing journalism. He said he likes Aeikens’ easygoing style and added his sense of diplomacy makes him a good leader: “He’s a strategist. He weighs everything very carefully.”

The loss of newspaper reporters is a big issue but Aeikens said he sees light at the end of tunnel.

He noted the problem is not with losing audiences — newspapers in print and web are being read by more people than ever. The problem is failing to find revenue.

But Aeikens is a true believer in his craft.

“Most people in this country are always going to want well-gathered news,” he said. “It’s hard to believe, in a democracy, that will ever stop.”