Marcus Leshock didn’t set out to become an entertainment journalist.

“I don’t know if I ever really decided,” he said. “It just kind of happened. I always loved entertainment. I always knew that I wanted to write about films and music and the arts. I just really love telling those stories.”

That passion brought Marcus both to the Northern Star and to Northern Television Center while attending NIU. He admits today that he approached Allen May, NTC’s general manager of broadcast news, “on a whim.” Several years and two Emmy awards later, Leshock has become one of Chicago’s leading entertainment journalists, and the recipient of this year’s Northern Star Outstanding Young Alumni award.

The Schaumburg native earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications at NIU, while working as a writer and editor for the Star’s Weekender section and as a film critic with NTC. He took full advantage of NIU’s proximity to Chicago, attending critics’ screenings with the likes of Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper.

Leshock’s professional career began in 2005, while still working toward his master’s. Chicagoland Television (CLTV), a division of Tribune Co., was impressed with his work at NTC and the Star, and offered him a correspondent position for its Metromix program. He was hired full-time after six months, and within about a year he was asked to take over the show’s hosting duties. Then, in 2009, he became a feature reporter for superstation WGN-TV.

That same year, Marcus was recognized for his contributions to television, winning local Emmy awards for his work on CLTV and for his recaps of “American Idol.” He refers to the experience as “surreal.”

“I really never thought I would be in television,” he says. “Here I am, accepting these awards and looking out on all of the people in Chicago television that I had grown up watching, and here they are looking at me and listening to what I’m saying.”

While he admits that being lauded for his achievements at such a young age did put some pressure on him to reach further, Marcus says he’s content working at WGN and continuing to tell the stories that drew him to journalism in the first place.

“It’s a fun job,” he said. “I want people to turn on the news every day and say, ‘Hey, I would love to do that.'”