We’ll miss Shaw, but look forward to a tasty roast

So Randy Shaw is retiring and won’t be manning the KREM 2 news anchor desk by the end of September.

What’s next?

Are they moving the Big Red Wagon out of Riverfront Park? Will the Whammy be suddenly eighty-sixed from the Dick’s burger menu?

Will we all wake up one day to discover that the potholes have all disappeared?

No. Scratch that last one.

Nobody’s going to complain about vanishing potholes.

But no Shaw delivering the news?

Say it ain’t so.

Shaw has become a fixture of the Inland Northwest TV media landscape.

If Shaw were president, he’d be halfway through his ninth term.

With some 24,000 newscasts behind him, Shaw is considered Spokane’s most enduring, and endearing, anchorman.

Awards and accolades aside, it is Shaw’s longevity that impresses me most. That’s because broadcast journalism is a ratings-conscious, fleeting business where news anchors often come and go faster than campaign promises.

Shaw is the rare exception. There’s no secret about why.

He’s a consummate pro, a journalist who began his career as a newspaperman.

Shaw also has that “it” factor.

He presents the news in that old-school way of being straightforward yet respectful.

Viewers trust him.

There’s no higher accolade for a news anchor than that.

I’ve known for some time that Shaw would hang it up this year.

And I’m proud to say that he asked me to emcee the roast being thrown for him Aug. 30 at the Bing Crosby Theater.

Tickets for the 3 p.m. event are $10 (available by calling TicketsWest), with proceeds going to Inland Northwest Honor Flight, a program that is near and dear to Shaw.

If you’ve never been to a roast, they are basically a cross between a mugging and one of Donald Trump’s press conferences.

Don’t be frightened, however.

The Shaw roast is supposed to be “family friendly.”

Meaning Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, one of the eight roasters, has to leave his Taser home.

Shaw is worried that the sheriff may be relishing his chance to roast a journalist way too much.

Told that he’d have to keep his Shaw skewering to a reasonable length of time, Knezovich reportedly complained that “it’s not long enough.”

Shaw’s also a bit nervous about having Tom Sherry, KREM 2’s venerable weathercaster, on the roaster panel.

“Tom knows all my secrets,” he said.

This will be delicious fun. Adhering to the traditional “Rules of the Roast,” each panel member will be given time to hurl hilarious gossip and insults at Shaw, especially if they’re true.

After everyone has had a go, however, the Man of Honor is given the chance to get even.

Speaking from experience, I will testify that Shaw is wickedly good at payback delivery.

Shaw was on a panel that roasted me some years back at the Davenport Hotel. He went after me the way a crusher in a wrecking yard finishes off a derelict car.

“So we’re having a roast for Doug Clark,” I recall Shaw saying. “Have we run out of humans?”

And …

“Clark is living proof that not only cream rises to the top,” he bantered. “Scum rises to the top, too.”

I need a moment. Dredging up these Shawisms from my roast of yore has given me a case of the post-traumatic willies.

Hmm.

But now Randy wants me to emcee his roast.

Think I’ll quit here and get started on writing some payback delivery of my own.