Emmy-winning Yankton man finds retirement job in hardware

YANKTON, S.D. (AP) — Sometimes, the road less traveled has some interesting turns.

Emmy Award winner John McCuin has been quietly living in Yankton with his family for the last 10 years. Recently retired, he is currently spending more time at home and is also working at Kopetsky’s ACE Hardware.

“I was working for ESPN, that’s how I got the Emmy, and it was for U.S. Open Tennis in 2018. It was a technical Emmy for the people putting together the show, the people operating the equipment,” McCuin told the Yankton Press and Dakotan. “When I got a call from a lady at (the place) where the Emmys are made — one at a time — she called to verify my address. She said, ‘I never sent an Emmy to South Dakota.’ At that point, that was her quote.”

The way McCuin sees it, the Emmy represents all those who came before him and helped him become the person he is today, he said.

“It represents my family, who has made incredible sacrifices to support me in what I love to do,” he said. “I tell my family, ‘This Emmy is yours.’”

By 2018, McCuin had already started planning his exit from the world of television.

“It’s been a fun, interesting and very fulfilling career, but it is time for me to be home,” he said. “I felt like it was time in my heart, and I recognized that with both kids being out of the house now, my wife needed me to be home, as well.”

The family moved from Colorado after John’s wife, Deborah McCuin, who was a teacher in Fort Collins, Colorado, earned a Ph.D. When she accepted a job as director of Graduate Teacher Education with Mount Marty University, the family decided to move to Yankton, he said.

“It was hard to leave Colorado but, at the same time, Debbie worked very hard to get a Ph.D., so we were going to follow her to...