ROCHESTER — Jane Belau’s superpower has been her ability to influence the influencers. She identified the political powerful and, through glamour and gumption, charm and smarts, gained access to and influenced it. It explains the staying power of “The Belau Report,” a Rochester public affairs show now in its 50th year that appears on cable and YouTube.
Punching above its weight class, Belau’s public access show landed interviews with Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the Soviet Union, and former President Ronald Reagan. She has chatted with every governor since the 1970s, including Wendell Anderson, Arnie Carlson and Al Quie in a group chat. She has scored interviews with American musician Carole King when she stumped for presidential candidate John Kerry, and consumer activist Ralph Nader when he was running for president.
“She has been a force in this community forever,” said Sheila Kiscaden, an Olmsted County commissioner and former state senator. “She’s always liked to be in the background, but she’s always liked to have influence.” ADVERTISEMENT The second point can’t be stressed too much.
While skilled at influencing the powerful, Belau has never been fond of the spotlight herself. Which is why Tuesday’s celebration marking the golden anniversary of Belau’s show held a hint of unpredictability. It was meant to be a surprise.
The spotlight would be on her. “So don’t be surprised if she’s a little upset, because she has been resisting this,” Kiscaden, celebration orchestrator, warned the assembled well-wishers in the atrium of Rochester Community and Technical College where Belau tapes her show. They included current and former business and chamber leaders, state legislators, city council members and county commissioners, and Mayor Kim Norton, who was Belau’s show guest that day.
All had been on her show over the years. They need not have worried. “I am overwhelmed.
They are wonderful people,” said Belau, visibly moved by the outpouring. She was presented with the Key to the City, a bottle of champagne and a bouquet. Belau, 90, suspended her show for a period after taking a fall, but has since resumed taping.
She has talked about retiring and wrapping up the show in October. She is married to Paul Belau, a retired Olmsted County coroner, and they have three adult children. There were many stories.
It’s not possible to be in the midst of such a gathering without hearing the stories that have made Belau, in the eyes of many, the “The First Lady of Rochester.” Belau flew first class because you never knew whose shoulders you might find yourself brushing up against. On one flight, she found herself sitting next to the head of Control Data Corporation, a computer company.
He ended up hiring her. ADVERTISEMENT She was the only Minnesota journalist to get an interview with Reagan in 1980, her son Steve Belau said. She and her cameraman jumped in a vehicle and dashed across the state to Mankato where she got the interview with Reagan.
She was undeniably glamorous and beautiful. Early in her time in Rochester, she was hired to model clothes for Julius Estes, a Rochester upscale clothing shop, and her picture regularly appeared in newspaper advertisements. She was Rochester’s first Poet Laureate.
A pianist, Belau reportedly sang with Bono of U2 fame in the atrium of the Gonda Building. But Belau stayed true to her policy of neither confirming or denying such reports in keeping with her belief that such people should be protected during visits to the Mayo Clinic. Once, then-Gov.
Mark Dayton was in town to visit with Mayo bigwigs. In the Gonda lobby, he heard someone playing the piano and asked who the musician was. When he heard it was Belau, he raced down the stairs to greet her.
Soon the duo were singing Christmas carols together. Her proximity to power led to her appointment on numerous state boards and presidential commissions, where she had a hand in influencing policies, including toward people with developmental disabilities and the incarcerated. “She was a person of influence but not prominence and that’s what she liked,” Kiscaden said.
“She always recognized where the power lay. And so she always endeavored to contact those folks to achieve the greater good,” Steve Belau said..
