Spokane Mayor Makes Letterman’s Top 10 List

Thu., April 20, 1995

From Staff And Wire Reports

If Spokane Mayor Jack Geraghty is a little blurry-eyed today, he’s got a good excuse.

The mayor stayed up late Wednesday to catch his cameo appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

Geraghty was featured in a brief video clip during the TV show’s nightly Top 10 list. Wednesday’s topic was city slogans.

Geraghty said he was approached by a representative of the show and asked to say: “If you say Spo-kane, we’ll smack you with a pine tree.” Actually, the East Coast show’s representative wanted him to say Douglas fir, but the mayor educated him about which trees are found on this side of the Cascades.

After the silver-haired Geraghty delivered his line, Letterman quipped that the mayor looked like he could fill in for TV talk show host Phil Donahue.

But Geraghty isn’t taking his national television work seriously.

“It’s just being funny,” he said.

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