HURON — Take someone with a strong love of her community, add a dash of local culture and lifestyle, fold in stunning video of your subject and then share it on a national platform.

That is what is happening with Ace Realty owner Angie Uttecht and her portion of an award winning program titled “American Dream TV.”

“It is so enjoyable to have the chance to highlight Huron,” said Uttecht recently. “They days of watching a program only when it was on are gone. American Dream TV embraces that.”

The program is available on several streaming platforms (YouTube TV, Prime Video, HGTV), or if you are interested, you can Google “American Dream TV” and watch it on the program’s website. Episodes are approximately 25 minutes long, with five separate five-minute segments in each episode.

Uttecht is the lone participant in South Dakota that is outside of the Sioux Falls area, allowing her to present something completely different than the other hosts.

“The first segment I did highlighted the Karen community and its impact on Huron,” Uttecht said. She spoke with Huron School District Superintendent Dr. Kraig Steinhoff, Kler Hae, a Karen realtor in Uttecht’s office and Pywe Der, a Karen law enforcement officer.

Another segment has her visiting with Huron Chamber and Visitors Bureau CEO and president Laurie Shelton, touring the new Dakota Events CompleX (DEX) on the state fairgrounds and Splash Central.

“American Dream TV is not reality TV,” Uttecht says, “it is real TV. It is about lifestyle and culture of an area, with perhaps a bit of real estate as well.” She added that local real estate agents or sometimes mortgage loan officers are tasked with hosting segments.

Uttecht said that her hosting a segment of each South Dakota show came about after repeated efforts by the company to establish a toe-hold in the state.

“They were seeking to expand the footprint of the show into North and South Dakota,” she said. “We had seen emails in the office, but frankly, there is a lot of spam out there and I wasn’t really sure about it. Then we had a voice mail from the same company with the same message. So I took a chance and called them back.”

After a Zoom interview and some story segment submissions, she was chosen to become part of program.

“The number of people who stream these programs is simply astounding,” Uttecht said. “For me, this is a chance to highlight our community and show what it has to offer to someone who perhaps wouldn’t otherwise have heard about Huron.”

While Uttecht is entrenched in the real estate market of the area, American Dream TV has allowed her to revisit a segment of her past.

“I actually have my degree in broadcast journalism through South Dakota State,” she said, “so doing American Dream TV fits that really well. Plus, Laurie (Smith, another realtor in Uttecht’s office) and I were doing something similar to this several years ago!”

Uttecht explained that when hashtags began to appear, she and Smith used #hereinhuron and highlighted local businesses in Huron and what they had to offer.

“This is really what we were doing, albeit on a much grander scale!”
The only difficulty she has needed to overcome was that of finding a reliable videographer. “I was using someone from Sioux Falls, but that was problematic. It was four hours in travel and we are at the mercy of the weather here. So I began talking to Craig Lee and kept after him and now he is an approved videographer for American Dream TV, which give us much more flexibility when Mother Nature throws us a curve.”

Uttecht said the upcoming segment highlights the use of Governor’s Houses in Huron, as like every community, it works to correct a shortage in housing. “I wanted to highlight the process that both helps alleviate the housing shortage, while at the same time helping the prisoners who build the houses at the Springfield Correctional Center learn a skill that they can use when released.”

Another part of the segment will highlight Manolis Grocery, a unique business not only in Huron but throughout the state, she said.

“We do the filming and send the raw footage to American Dream TV,” she said. “It is fun to plan the segment and then film it. Then we get to anticipate while they edit it together and then we see the final product.”

Uttecht said that there is no shortage of ideas for upcoming segments of the program, and she doesn’t see herself running out of things to highlight in the Huron area.