Tom Sherry has been the chief meteorologist and occasional anchor at KREM-TV for the past 32 years. Now at 62, he is stepping down from his position.

Sherry aspired to be a progressive FM radio broadcaster since he was in the ninth grade. When he was 18, he moved to Spokane to join his older brother who was a student at Gonzaga University, and he has been here ever since. He landed his first broadcasting job at the country music station KDRK-FM “The Mountain,” where he stayed for 10 years before applying for a weekend meteorologist position with KREM-TV. Once he landed the role, he completed a three-year remote program in broadcasting from the University of Mississippi.

The Journal recently sat down with Sherry to discuss his career, his hobbies, and what he looks forward to in his early retirement.

Were you always interested in the weather?

I’ll be honest. I’m a broadcaster. I did weather because it enabled me to be a broadcaster on television. I like broadcasting, and I like being around other broadcasters. I think it’s a fabulous medium, whether its radio or television. So, I wanted to figure out a way to do that. 

When the weather position opened up, they let you have more of a personality than on the news side. 

Everybody was trying to be a serious scientist and I thought, let’s just go for it. After a year of doing the weekend weather, a morning position opened up.

Long-time readers will remember the late—great Peter Colford. He was the one who took me under his wing. He said I could do this. When Peter got sick, I moved to evenings. He was 39 when he died, colon cancer.

What is it about broadcasting that you love?

First of all, I like good broadcasters. The good ones make it look easy, and the bad ones make you want to change the channel. 

There is a real energy, which I will miss the most. I’ll miss being in the trenches. I like learning about news before the public does. For the past five years, they’ve let me anchor a newscast, fill in, and I love it. 

When you’re on air, it’s like working without a net, you have to be on. You might be dragging all day, but as soon as you sit down or stand up in front of the camera, there’s a thing that happens, you come alive. And there’s an energy with the other people you’re working with. 

You can try and add some personality and have some fun with it. 

And that’s what I’ve always tried to do, is not take myself too seriously on the air. Be serious when breaking and severe weather is impacting people’s lives, but other than that, I say, let me be the break from the hard news you’re seeing and hearing.

That was your strategy during COVID right? Your reports were well received?

I really appreciate that people got that because that was a big deal. That was hard on me and my wife. We are not quarantine people. So we just said, let’s have fun. We figured site gags from the house. She worked at Barrister Winery, and while I was doing a report, she would fill up a glass of wine and leave it on the mantel piece behind me. Throughout the segment, you would see it go down, and I never took a sip of course. She eventually put lipstick on it so people would know. But still I got a lot of emails of people saying, “Hey we’re having happy hour with you!”

We were in it together. She used to work at KREM actually. Other bits we did was thinking of all the things people couldn’t do anymore, like manicures and going to the salon. So when the news anchors would toss it to me, you would see me painting my wife’s toenails, or filling in her highlights.

We were just finding ways of connecting and having fun. I felt it was our responsibility to bring a little bit of mirth into people’s lives during a really scary and lonely time.

What really brought me some attention early on is I had a dog on the air with me, and his name was Doppler the Weather Dog. He was a golden retriever, and he was on air with me for about the late ’90s to 2005. Kids loved him when we visited schools together. The only Emmy I’ve ever won was a commercial with Doppler. And I’m okay with that.

It sounds like you’ve had so much fun in your career.

I’ve had a ball. I am going to miss a lot of this. I’m super thankful to the viewer because my stuff was not like anybody else’s, and they were really nice to me to give me a little bit of latitude to land a good role. They let me step out. I’m very thankful to the viewers, and I was able to get all my kids through college without a debt. It’s been a good career.

What do you think makes a good broadcaster?

You need to be a good reflection of your community. Good broadcast stations are a great reflection of the people you are broadcasting to. You have to be personable. I personally think you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously.

When it comes to the journalism side, that’s been rough, with a lot of divisiveness. I wish people knew we are not cable news. Everything that goes on our air is vetted, goes through three sets of eyes.

What advice do you give to young broadcasters and journalists?

You have to learn to connect with people. This is more of a journalism type of answer, but I would appreciate our younger people to not pre-judge others. Find a way to make a connection and believe that deep down almost everyone is good. Even if you don’t agree on something that is serious, you’ll agree on the smaller stuff. Find a way to connect that way and don’t be afraid to tell their stories.

What do you look forward to in your retirement?

I’m not done, done. I do a lot of auctioneering for nonprofits and schools. My chant is not great, but I know how to read a room and keep the energy up. I look forward to doing that more in my future. I like helping worthwhile causes.

I actually had a longer contract but saw that if I gave ample notice I could retire early, so I did. I’m in a position where I can. 

I just wanted flexibility in my schedule for my wife and family. And I also think it’s important that if you are of my age, and you are able to do it, then you’ve made a nice place for someone else to step into a good-paying job and raise their family.

Of course, Turkey Drive is not going away—11,000 families served for the past 10 years, and we started it 20 years ago.

How did it start?

I noticed that there were a lot of scattered turkey drives. It was haphazard, and I really wanted to do something and put my name to it. So we started with the Salvation Army first and satisfied their drive. Then we helped Second Harvest. We had the greatest partner ever, and that was Rosauers Supermarkets. They would put a bag of groceries together to feed an entire family for just $15 dollars in the beginning. Now it’s $20.

It became more popular. Darigold, the local dairy farmers, out of their own volition started donating. Franz Bakery gave us 11,000 bags of rolls. We had potato farmers from central Washington truck in real potatoes, out of their own cost for us and be a part of it all. The Turkey Drive has always been a great event, and the secret that has made it great is that anybody can do something great for $20 and feed an entire family.