The death of veteran Minnesota Public Radio news employee Toni Randolph on Sunday came as a shock to many of her friends and colleagues, including young journalists of color she mentored over the years.
Randolph, 53, a longtime reporter, editor and community-outreach worker described as uncommonly generous yet intensely private, wanted it that way.
“People will automatically go into grief mode and she did not want that,” said MPR news director Jonathan Blakely, who knew about her recent, losing battle with cancer. “She wanted to do her job, go home and come back tomorrow.”
Randolph’s longtime friend Sheletta Brundidge was going through a miscarriage years ago when she got a call from Randolph, who insisted on baby-sitting for her while she was in the hospital.
“She took time from her job to sit with my son,” said Brundidge, formerly of KSTP-TV, who now lives in Cottage Grove. “She didn’t have any children, but she would take care of yours.”
And, yet, “I didn’t know she was going through chemotherapy,” Brundidge added. “I remember calling to (gripe) about stuff and she listened to all my complaints, never letting on how sick she was. She always put herself last and her friends and family first.”
Nancy Cassutt, MPR executive director for news, said Randolph died “while undergoing surgery for cancer treatment. She had been hospitalized all week and last night underwent a procedure that she just never came out of, according to her older brother, Morgan.
“Because Toni was such a private person, many of us did not even know she was sick but she had been fighting cancer for more than three years,” Cassutt said. “Morgan told me tonight that she came to work in pain and many of us just didn’t know.”
‘EDITOR OF NEW AUDIENCES’
Randolph, a Buffalo, N.Y. native, had worked at MPR since 2003. She was originally hired as a reporter to do what MPR now touts as exemplary journalism focused on homelessness, immigration and politics, among other topics.
Her St. Paul-related reportage includes “A shopper’s perspective on the Macy’s closing” in 2013, and stories in 2004 and 2009 about the St. Paul Winter Carnival.
“She was a storyteller and used her position to tell stories for the people who didn’t necessarily have a voice,” Brundidge said.
Deputy news director Laura McCallum said Randolph located her true calling, though, when she assigned to the then-unusual role of “editor of new audiences.”
MPR has struggled to expand its audience beyond older white people, and it then charged Randolph with increasing listener diversity.
“She was the logical person to take on that work, and she was passionate about it,” McCallum recalled. “She did a lot of public speaking and working with students. She was a good mentor to journalists of color.”
These include Blakely, who said Randolph actively recruited him when he was at National Public Radio and pestered her superiors to bring him on board.
They also include Mukhtar Ibrahim, an MPR reporter of Somali extraction, who said on Facebook Monday, “a giant has left us.”
“Toni was more than a friend to me,” Ibrahim wrote. “She was like a parent, always giving me advice, encouraging me to explore new topics and opportunities, and finding a time to talk with me even during her busiest days and weeks.”
In another post, Ibrahim added, “Toni guided and empowered many journalists like me to tell their own stories. I’ve never known anyone as kind, elegant and amazingly resourceful as Toni.”
MENTORING AND OUTREACH
Randolph, following a wave of MPR layoffs, recently took on the role of weekend news editor while continuing with her mentoring and outreach duties.
Randolph, who had long championed the ThreeSixty Journalism program for aspiring journalists, was named to that St. Paul-based group’s board of advisers in February. In 2014, she received ThreeSixty’s annual Widening the Circle Award.
She also oversaw MPR’s Young Reporter Series that pairs up high-school and college-age reporters of diverse backgrounds with MPR staffers in order to engage in all manner of radio work.
Mentoring was in her blood, said longtime friend Marsha Pitts-Phillips.
“She had a way of underscoring a person’s value and talent,” said Pitts-Phillips, director of media relations at the Great Twin Cities United Way. “If she believed in you, she really believed in you. I always wanted to honor that belief she had in me.”
Randolph was active in the local chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists while achieving renown countrywide, according to fellow members.
She did not, however, seek the limelight, said Duchesne Drew, a former Star Tribune editor now working at the Bush Foundation.
Though she’d often host Twin Cities Black Journalists gatherings, she “wasn’t the biggest personality in the room,” Drew said. Instead, “she was the person moving about to make sure all got their needs met. She had very much of a caretaker personality.”
Randolph “was committed to helping people find their way,” said Maria Reeve, a deputy metro editor at the Star Tribune, and president of the Twin Cities Black Journalists. “She was always willing to introduce people to each other and make connections professionally.”
A HUGE PRINCE FAN
Before arriving at MPR, Randolph worked at Boston’s WBUR public-radio station for more than seven years. She covered Massachusetts politics, airport security and the city’s clergy sex-abuse scandal, among other topics.
Randolph began her public-broadcasting career as news director at a public radio station in her Buffalo hometown, shortly after earning a master’s degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
She was a huge Prince fan. “She had pretty much every album Prince ever made, “Blakely said. “She had stuff she did not want to let out of her sight, but she let me rip some albums I did not know existed.”
When Prince recently died and MPR went into breaking-news mode, Blakely handled much of the on-air work and now regrets not giving Randolph that job (though she did get some Prince on-air time).
“If I were to do it all over again,” said Blakely, “Toni would be in front of the mike.”
Randolph didn’t have much family in Minnesota but was close to her brothers and other relatives elsewhere, said her cousin Kim McKay of Plymouth.
McKay bonded with Randolph soon after she moved to the Twin Cities, and they created a tradition: catching a flick together on Christmas night. Their last one: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
Randolph may have been the best-dressed employee at MPR, McCallum said.
“She was very classy, wearing dresses and skirts,” she said. “She always looked wonderful, perfectly poised, calm and thoughtful in the midst of a chaotic newsroom.”
She seemed to exude a presence that put others at ease, Blakely said. He’d recall feeling that “it’s fine because this person is here. Toni is here. How bad could the day be?”
Reeve said Randolph “had a regal way about her. She was always the voice of reason, and not prone to histrionics.”
She was the best kind of friend, Pitts-Phillips said. “You may not have known her birthday, but she knew yours.”
Brundidge said Randolph “was really good people. She was genuine. She was regular. She was the sister you always wanted, and the friend you didn’t know you needed.”
Services will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in North Minneapolis.
