DETROIT – Sons named following their fathers has been commonplace for hundreds of years. But daughters named immediately after their moms? Very well, not so much.
CBS News Detroit anchor and reporter Amyre Makupson, M.A. ’06, is very well mindful of the confusion her matrilineal name usually causes all through Southeast Michigan.
Her mom – also Amyre Makupson – is a revered tv legend in metro Detroit, most effective known for anchoring WKBD-TV’s signature late neighborhood newscast from 1985 through its finale in 2002. Just before then, she was a trailblazer, foremost WGPR-Tv62’s initially information broadcast as a member of Detroit’s initially all-females anchor group on the nation’s initially Black-owned station in 1975.
“Having the exact same name tends to make it tricky since you under no circumstances actually get an chance to be you,” mentioned Makupson, who jokingly phone calls herself Amyre 2..
So, it’s quick to think the 41-12 months-old Makupson would have shied absent from regional Tv set information, appropriate?
Improper.
Despite the obvious perplexity that her identify often leads to metro Detroit viewers, Makupson has normally yearned for the vibrant lights of Television set cameras. Like her mom, broadcasting and storytelling are just in her blood.

Even as a young student at St. Regis Catholic University, and later at Mercy Significant School, Makupson used nearly each Friday evening in a Southfield Television studio as her mother prepped for the late nightly newscast.
“I cannot try to remember when I did not go to operate with my mom,” Makupson mentioned. “I constantly preferred to do that. She would allow me sit on the anchor desk and I would practice looking through from the teleprompter. It just was so ingrained. I hardly ever understood there was anything at all else I could be.”
There was a time when Makupson deemed legislation school nevertheless, her late father, Walter, who was an lawyer for Common Motors, quickly extinguished the notion.
“There was 1 issue exactly where I was really teeter-tottering and he mentioned, ‘You are way too psychological to be a attorney,’” Makupson recalled. “‘You get items much too individually, and you are gonna test to battle people in the courtroom.’ The next factor I knew, I was in journalism college.”
As an alternative, it was her older brother, Rudy Makupson, J.D. ’09, who adopted their father into the authorized profession and is an lawyer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
Amyre refocused on broadcast journalism.
In point, Makupson has appear full circle, now operating in the same Southfield studio where by she invested so numerous nights shadowing her mom.
A MOTHER’S Tips

After graduating substantial college in 2000, Makupson hoped to attend Michigan Condition College. She figured East Lansing was the perfect distance – considerably more than enough for her independence, however near adequate for quick outings residence.

But her mom had other designs.
An ardent supporter of Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities (HBCU), Makupson Sr. graduated from an HBCU – Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee – and inspired her two small children to take a look at equivalent instructional experiences.
“She insisted that my brother and I go to an HBCU for at the very least a 12 months,” Makupson mentioned. “I stayed at Howard University four years. My brother went to Morehouse Higher education and stayed two.”
When the time arrived to pick out a master’s software, Makupson, sought her mother’s suggestions.
“I did not know if I wished to go suitable into tv or more my schooling,” Makupson explained. “They had a software at Michigan Point out and Oakland College, but I chose Wayne Condition mainly because my mom generally utilized to inform us in superior college when we have been first talking about faculties that she felt Wayne Point out was the finest-kept secret in Detroit.
“She beloved the college, she liked the administration and the education and learning was excellent. But it does not get the recognition she felt it deserved. So, I checked it out, and I cherished it. Likely to Wayne Point out and talking to people there about the items that could arrive with getting my master’s from Wayne Point out opened the doorway to a thousand far more position chances than broadcast journalism. I was studying from people who were being actively working in the business, my friends, my classmates and the teachers. It just was an incredible, great experience.”
After earning her bachelor of arts in journalism from Howard in 2004, and a grasp of arts in communications and media scientific tests from Wayne Condition, Makupson started her Tv set news job two several hours south of Detroit in Lima, Ohio. She then produced and anchored newscasts for stations in Georgia, which include WMUB-Tv, which is aspect of Mercer University’s Centre for Collaborative Journalism.
At initial, Makupson noticed her Tv set roles as critical and significant to the local community. But just after a couple many years on the task, it all became perfunctory.
“I was tired of getting explained to to appear a sure way, discuss a certain way, current a sure way,” she stated. “It just got irritating.”
COMING Household

Makupson was looking for much more.

She preferred a function where by she could be impactful although connecting with the communities she served. She found that work as a marketing director at Central Georgia Technical Higher education in Warner Robins.
She was in her happy area.
“We were literally concerned in the colleges and the local community, and aiding grownups study to read and young persons get connected to a upcoming,” she reported.
But then arrived the mobile phone simply call that at some point adjusted her existence.
“My task was so fulfilling and meaningful to me that when this placement at CBS Detroit opened, I didn’t want to get it due to the fact I was so joyful seeing how my situation was capable to support other men and women,” Makupson reported.
Very last January, as CBS Information Detroit was having established to start, Makupson acquired a simply call from the news director who is no stranger to her loved ones. Paul Pytlowany when served as a videographer at WKBD through the elder Makupson’s tenure there.
Returning property and supporting CBS Information Detroit start its 24/7 streaming and broadcast news provider was intriguing to Makupson, but she was apprehensive simply because of the ‘name game’ and the stress and anxiety it would very likely induce for herself. Additionally, she was content material in the Peach Point out, the place the mere point out of Amyre Makupson doesn’t invoke reminiscences of her mother’s hall-of-fame vocation.
“I stayed absent from Detroit my total career on intent. How can I potentially fill all those shoes?” explained Makupson, referring to her mom’s level of popularity. “But my mom would always say, ‘You you should not have to fill those people shoes. Do your individual issue.’”
Nevertheless, Makupson spoke at size with her mother, as well as an additional Detroit Tv information legend, Huel Perkins, before producing the decision to appear property.
“My mother has normally pushed me to be on-air in Detroit and I usually claimed I was not going to do that,” Makupson explained. “Huel was appropriate along with her declaring, ‘You’ve acquired to come dwelling.’ I did not want to for the reason that it is so intimidating. But when I received in this article and almost everything commenced to occur to fruition and the information in fact got on the air, I felt genuinely foolish due to the fact I have gotten so a great deal adore and aid from Detroit that I would like I had done it a long time ago.”

Apart from her role driving the anchor desk, Makupson is liable for cultivating grassroots tales as executive producer impacting communities (EPIC). It’s a equivalent function that she had at Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.
“Paul defined it to me that this would be just like the Mercer job, but times a million mainly because of the electricity of a television community,” Makupson said. “He stated I could nevertheless do the interacting with the local community and do the things that are advantageous and beneficial to all the folks who need to have it. It would just be on a larger sized scale now.”
The group engagement is what drives Makupson, who admits that she does not want a comprehensive-time anchor gig.
“To me, the most effective job in the globe is figuring out you’ve produced a distinction in anyone else’s daily life,” she explained. “And the way that I can do that is in this EPIC local community-based mostly position.”
Quickly just after Amyre 2. took on her new part at CBS Detroit, she was joined on air by a really special guest (see online video under).
“My very first time on the station anchor desk my mother arrived in and did the show with me,” she said. “And that was the instant, where I was like, every thing in daily life would make perception. Now, I am thoroughly, completely joyful. This is the greatest determination I have at any time manufactured in my existence.”