DETROIT – Sons named after their fathers has been commonplace for centuries. But daughters named after their mothers? Well, not so much.

CBS News Detroit anchor and reporter Amyre Makupson, M.A. ’06, is well aware of the confusion her matrilineal name typically causes throughout Southeast Michigan.

Her mother – also Amyre Makupson – is a revered television legend in metro Detroit, best known for anchoring WKBD-TV’s signature late local newscast from 1985 through its finale in 2002. Before then, she was a trailblazer, leading WGPR-TV62’s first news broadcast as a member of Detroit’s first all-women anchor team on the nation's first Black-owned station in 1975.

“Having the same name makes it difficult because you never really get an opportunity to be you,” said Makupson, who jokingly calls herself Amyre 2.0.

So, it’s easy to think the 41-year-old Makupson would have shied away from local TV news, right?

Wrong.

Despite the obvious perplexity that her name often causes metro Detroit viewers, Makupson has always yearned for the bright lights of TV cameras. Like her mother, broadcasting and storytelling are just in her blood.

Even as a young student at St. Regis Catholic School, and later at Mercy High School, Makupson spent nearly every Friday evening in a Southfield TV studio as her mom prepped for the late nightly newscast.

“I can’t remember when I didn’t go to work with my mom,” Makupson said. “I always wanted to do that. She would let me sit on the anchor desk and I would practice reading from the teleprompter. It just was so ingrained. I never knew there was anything else I could be.”

There was a time when Makupson considered law school; however, her late father, Walter, who was an attorney for General Motors, quickly extinguished the notion.

“There was one point where I was really teeter-tottering and he said, ‘You are too emotional to be a lawyer,’” Makupson recalled. “‘You take things too personally, and you're gonna try to fight people in the courtroom.’ The next thing I knew, I was in journalism school.”

Instead, it was her older brother, Rudy Makupson, J.D. ’09, who followed their father into the legal profession and is an attorney at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Amyre refocused on broadcast journalism.

In fact, Makupson has come full circle, now working in the same Southfield studio where she spent so many nights shadowing her mom.

A MOTHER’S ADVICE

After graduating high school in 2000, Makupson hoped to attend Michigan State University. She figured East Lansing was the perfect distance – far enough for her independence, yet close enough for quick trips home.

But her mother had other plans.

An ardent supporter of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Makupson Sr. graduated from an HBCU – Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee – and encouraged her two children to explore similar educational experiences.

“She insisted that my brother and I go to an HBCU for at least a year,” Makupson said. “I stayed at Howard University four years. My brother went to Morehouse College and stayed two.”

When the time came to choose a master’s program, Makupson, sought her mother’s advice.

“I didn’t know if I wanted to go right into television or further my education,” Makupson said. “They had a program at Michigan State and Oakland University, but I chose Wayne State because my mom always used to tell us in high school when we were first talking about colleges that she felt Wayne State was the best-kept secret in Detroit.

“She loved the school, she loved the administration and the education was fantastic. But it doesn’t get the recognition she felt it deserved. So, I checked it out, and I loved it. Going to Wayne State and speaking to people there about the things that could come with getting my master’s from Wayne State opened the door to a thousand more job opportunities than broadcast journalism. I was learning from people who were actively working in the industry, my peers, my classmates and the teachers. It just was an incredible, awesome experience.”

After earning her bachelor of arts in journalism from Howard in 2004, and a master of arts in communications and media studies from Wayne State, Makupson began her TV news career two hours south of Detroit in Lima, Ohio. She then produced and anchored newscasts for stations in Georgia, including WMUB-TV, which is part of Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.

At first, Makupson saw her TV roles as important and meaningful to the community. But after a few years on the job, it all became perfunctory.

“I was tired of being told to look a certain way, speak a certain way, present a certain way,” she said. “It just got frustrating.”

COMING HOME

Makupson was looking for more.

She wanted a role where she could be impactful while connecting with the communities she served. She found that job as a marketing director at Central Georgia Technical College in Warner Robins.

She was in her happy place.

“We were literally involved in the schools and the community, and helping grownups learn to read and young people get connected to a future,” she said.

But then came the phone call that eventually changed her life.

“My job was so fulfilling and meaningful to me that when this position at CBS Detroit opened, I didn’t want to take it because I was so happy seeing how my position was able to help other people,” Makupson said.

Last January, as CBS News Detroit was getting set to launch, Makupson received a call from the news director who is no stranger to her family. Paul Pytlowany once served as a videographer at WKBD during the elder Makupson’s tenure there.

Returning home and helping CBS News Detroit launch its 24/7 streaming and broadcast news service was intriguing to Makupson, but she was apprehensive because of the ‘name game’ and the anxiety it would likely cause for herself. Plus, she was content in the Peach State, where the mere mention of Amyre Makupson doesn’t invoke memories of her mother’s hall-of-fame career.

“I stayed away from Detroit my whole career on purpose. How can I possibly fill those shoes?” said Makupson, referring to her mom’s popularity. “But my mom would always say, ‘You don't have to fill those shoes. Do your own thing.’”

Still, Makupson spoke at length with her mother, as well as another Detroit TV news legend, Huel Perkins, before making the decision to come home.

“My mom has always pushed me to be on-air in Detroit and I always said I wasn’t going to do that,” Makupson said. “Huel was right along with her saying, ‘You’ve got to come home.’ I didn’t want to because it is so intimidating. But when I got here and everything started to come to fruition and the news actually got on the air, I felt really foolish because I have gotten so much love and support from Detroit that I wish I had done it a long time ago.”

Aside from her role behind the anchor desk, Makupson is responsible for cultivating grassroots stories as executive producer impacting communities (EPIC). It’s a similar role that she had at Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.

“Paul explained it to me that this would be just like the Mercer job, but times a million because of the power of a television network,” Makupson said. “He said I could still do the interacting with the community and do the things that are beneficial and helpful to all the people who need it. It would just be on a larger scale now.”

The community engagement is what drives Makupson, who admits that she doesn’t want a full-time anchor gig.

“To me, the best job in the world is knowing you’ve made a difference in somebody else’s life,” she said. “And the way that I can do that is in this EPIC community-based position.”

Soon after Amyre 2.0 took on her new role at CBS Detroit, she was joined on air by a very special guest (see video below).

“My first time on the station anchor desk my mom came in and did the show with me,” she said. “And that was the moment, where I was like, everything in life makes sense. Now, I am totally, completely happy. This is the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.”