(Watch) Unearthed Footage Of 11 Year Old Prince

I can only imagine what treasures are stashed away in the archives of a heritage TV station like WCCO.  To stumble across something like Prince being interviewed on the news about a teachers' strike in 1970, totally by chance is amazing.

WCCO Production Director, Matt Liddy just happened to be searching through some film in the WCCO archives looking for information on the Minneapolis teacher's strike back in 1970.

Liddy stumbled upon footage of a reporter interviewing school kids about the strike. Liddy noticed that one of the kids being interviewed was a strong resemblance to a Minnesota icon, Prince.

“I immediately just went out to the newsroom and started showing people and saying, ‘I’m not gonna tell you who I think this is, but who do you think this is?’ And every single person [said] ‘Prince,’” Liddy said.

Personally, I don't recall ever seeing any film of Prince before he was in his late teens. To see him at the age of 10 or 11 was certainly a treat. Liddy said 13 minutes of the film had been restored but there was work to do on the audio portion. WCCO brought in an audio expert and the segment was restored.

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I think it's pretty cool that Prince was standing up for the striking teachers' cause.

A big fan of Prince's, Kristen Zschomler, a historian and researcher who studies Minneapolis history, took one look at the film of the young 6th grader, Prince and said “I think just seeing Prince as a young child in his neighborhood school, you know, it helps really ground him to that Minneapolis connection. Even if they’re momentary glimpses into what Minneapolis meant to him, what he stood up for when he lived in Minneapolis, just helps understand that symbiotic connection he had to his hometown.”