From the WNIN Tri-State Public Media Center in downtown Evansville.

I'm David James and this is Two Main Street.

Well, he's a familiar face on local TV, keeping us informed about impending storms, making sense of all the colors and graphs popping up on the radar.

And when the skies are clear, making us smile with his on-air banter, including a recurring feature, Funky Fruit.

Yes.

When viewers send Ron items from the garden or the grocery that take on a new persona.

My guest is WEHT meteorologist Ron Rhodes, and this is my three degree guarantee, folks.

You're going to love this show.

So, Ron Rhodes, welcome to Two Main Street.

It's great to be here, David.

It really is.

I love it.

But you got to say it right now, you got to say funky fruit.

You got to roll that “R.” Well, I left that for you.

Okay.

Rolling the “R” is very good.

You're a good Spanish student.

Okay, yeah.

Trilling the “R.” Got to trill.

Trilling the “R.” Now, I've had WFIE’s chief meteorologist Jeff Lyons on the show, and like Jeff, you seize any opportunity to have a good time with viewers bringing humor, trivia, even science, to the world of weather.

Science!

Yes, right.

Sneak that in occasionally.

Every so often, you got to do that.

Okay, before we get into the arena of isobars and updrafts, let’s learn more about the popular feature of the aforementioned Funky Fruit.

So how did that get started, Ron?

Well, it started just as basically as you well know, David, you were in news for so long.

You still are.

It's like it's one of those deals where, you know, in the middle of summer, you're constantly saying partly cloudy with a 20% to 30% chance of afternoon thundershowers.

It gets old.

It's the same thing, high temperature right around 90.

So I just thought one summer and I remember one of your old colleagues, Marcia Yockey, told me, she goes, Rhodes, you got to make them have some fun.

So they pay attention for your forecast and they stay awake.

So I thought, you know, I can make it have a little fun.

I thought, you know, let's do, since gardening is probably the biggest hobby we've got, although, it's become less of a hobby and almost a necessity with the prices of food going up so much.

But I thought, you know, why don't we do something on gardening?

And I thought, let's have a biggest tomato contest.

So I asked, All of you said, Send me your biggest tomato.

You can, you know, send it in a box.

That became a bad idea really fast because funky fruit will get a whole lot funkier if it's in the mail for about two or three days.

So when I pull that tomato out, it’ll just be dripping, and boy that was funky.

But that was for biggest tomato, and I put it on a scale and weigh it and you know, I'd even trust the pictures and say, just go ahead and send a picture.

If it's got a scale in it, we'll let, you know, let it slide that your thumbs not behind it, weighing it down even more.

But, you know, then one guy sent me one in a box.

He said, Ron, this may not be the funkiest tomato., or, it may not be the biggest tomato, but I guarantee you it's the funniest looking, and sure enough, I pull it out.

It's a tomato that's got like a nose and ears.

And I'm thinking, oh, my goodness.

So I thought, this is pretty fun.

Well, once I showed that off, then somebody said, well, you think that was funny?

Wait till you see this.

And so all these tomatoes kept coming in, you know, in all kinds of odd shapes and sizes, and I thought, this is kind of neat.

This segment needs a name.

I was getting inundated with all that, so I called it Funky Fruit, because we all know tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.

My brothers would let me know that.

And so I thought, okay, we'll call it Funky Fruit.

Then all of a sudden people said, Well, I've got this funky carrot and I've got this funky, you know, squash and all this other kind of stuff, and so, it evolved into just basically anything you would grow in a garden that looks funny, send it to me.

I love to show it off.

Well, you can't stop it now.

It's got a life of its own.

It kind of has.

But I think a lot of people like it.

I think it's maybe one of those segments you either love it or you hate it, but I love it, and I know a lot of gardeners love it because first of all, I just want to give a shout out to gardeners as much as anything.

And it’s a year round thing!

It really is, I mean, I always call it potato season in the wintertime because it's whatever somebody pulls out of a sack of potatoes because usually if a tomato looks that odd, it's not usually out there on the produce counter, you know.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, Yeah.

So it's like something you pull out of a bag and something.

I get so many heart potatoes.

If I had a nickel for every love tater that I've gotten, I would be a rich man.

But that's okay.

I love it.

Now, of course, you receive photos?

Right.

Like you said, you used to receive the items that were brought to the studio and that was kind of, like you said, funkier than you wanted really.

Right.

And that's, you know, it started just a little bit before a lot of people had cell phones that could take pictures, you know, and so it's been around for a while and now I just say, no, just do a picture, please, don’t send a, don’t send a tomato in a box, we don't want that anymore.

I'm just curious, any items that may have been too suggestive or too bizarre that didn't make it on the air?

More than, more than a few.

Uh, my name at the station for this segment has like an alternate name, too.

So we'll just kind of leave it to your imagination.

But it starts with a “fuh” and the fruit, so.

So, so there's some censorship involved.

I have to.

You know, sometimes it's funny, I will put it on and I'll say that's a double tomato or something, and they said, you know, somebody will tell me after the show, they say Ron, that kind of looks like a butt.

Yes.

I said, well, but it's still a double tomato.

It's like two tomatoes in one and I thought, well, I guess if you're thinking along those lines.

But yeah, yeah, some of these just don't pass the censor.

Sometimes I don't catch it but I really need to.

It's gotten to the point now if it's so odd I'm thinking is this okay to show on the air?

Because I'm going to call it this, because I like to make it seem like it's something.

I don't just want to say there is a funky carrot.

There is a funky tomato.

No, I wanted to make it look like something.

I've had strawberries that look like rhinos running.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm thinking it looks like a rhinoceros that's running.

I'm thinking, that's pretty amazing!

I've had strawberries that look like, like elephants.

I mean, it's like.

But it really does.

I think the best ones are the carrots.

Some of these carrots, I mean, they'll grow legs and stuff like that.

One carrot looked exactly like an astronaut.

I don't know how it was grown that way, but it had like the space helmet, you know, and all that kind of stuff on it was kind of bulky.

I thought, this is pretty impressive.

I'm wondering if there's not a little Photoshopping.

I do, if it looks, you know, just too perfect or too good I'm thinking no.

The ones I like the most are probably like the gourds that look like swans.

I mean, it seems like I've got a lot of those, every gourd season.

That’s later on in the growing season.

But yeah, I just love it.

It's just a lot of fun just to see all these different garden things that people are pulling out, you know, these odd things out of the garden.

And it also is a kind of a reflection of the gardening community out there and man, they're harvesting a lot of stuff.

They really are.

It's amazing.

There are some serious gardeners out there.

I know it!

I found that out, you know, quickly, but they don't mind showing off some of their oddities.

You know, these are oddities from the garden.

Okay.

Okay.

Now you have backyard weather.

You actually have a little backyard.

Yeah, I do.

And I've always thought, well, I haven't always done this, but I've done this probably for better part of 20 years.

You know, I just remember one of our news directors back in the day said, Ron, you're a weatherman.

You need to be out in the weather.

I said, Yeah, that makes sense.

That's right.

So I would go outside.

I really loved it when snow is coming down, it is absolutely so fun to be out there when the snow is coming down in the backyard, throwing snowballs or we're making snowmen or whatever it is.

You know, it's just like the kid comes out in, you when you're outside in the snow and it's like, I like it.

Any kind of weather except for the rain.

I said, look, my mom told me I have sense enough to come in out of the rain coming, so I’m coming in out of the rain.

I could hold an umbrella, but I think more than anything, when I'm outside, they don't want the camera getting wet.

So that's the reason why they don't bring out the camera for the backyard weather when it's raining.

Other than that, I'm out there pretty much every day .

Now, you grew up in Owensboro, one of six children?

Right, I was one of six, five boys and one girl.

So we toughened our sister up pretty good.

Now, Karrah is, the one thing we we had back then, David that I thought that was interesting.

We had a two story house, so it was good size house.

We had enough rooms, but I had to share a room with my brother.

I mean always with my brother.

But we had one bathroom in that entire house.

You have eight people in that house, one bathroom.

And get this, the light switch is on the outside.

Are you kidding me?

Who designed that bathroom to have a light switch on the outside?

You know, you're not getting any time in the bathroom.

There's only one and you got eight people and so if you're in there more than 2 minutes, you're getting a flickering of the light.

They're just up and down on the light switch and you're sitting like you're at some kind of rave or something like that.

I’m sitting there saying alright I'm going to be out in a second I’ll be be out in a second.

So there was no magazine reading in the bathroom?

Nope, no time for that.

Okay.

You had to get your business done and move on.

You had to move.

Now, were you a weather geek as a kid?

I was.

I grew up in the seventies.

That's when I was a kid.

And, you know, I used to watch Marcia Yockey.

That was a big thing.

I mean, when my mom would say you could stay up late enough to watch Marcia, and that would be at 10:15, so and so we always enjoyed that because sometimes she’d dress up as like a spider.

I thought this is great.

She made weather fun.

She really did.

My my grandfather said, you know, you cut through the BS and she's really good.

She knows what she's talking about.

But she was a pilot and so she knew about weather, even though she wasn't a full fledged meteorologist.

But I mean, she was fun to watch.

And plus the seventies in the seventies, we had some really interesting weather, especially winters.

I mean, we had three of the coldest winters back to back to back in 76, 77, 77, 78 and 78, 79.

And of course, we had the blizzard right in the middle of that in January of 1978.

And anybody who's lived through that is going to be impacted by the weather.

I never want to see anything like that.

People bring up 2004, in December of 2004, when we had about 20 inches of snow, depending upon where you were in the Tri-State.

But it's like it wasn't the same that snow was gone in a week or week and a half by the new year.

It was right before Christmas in 2004, but by the New Year it was pretty much gone except for, you know, the big old parking lot mounds would stay there and get grayer and grayer, you know, for months.

But back in January of 78, we had a big old snow and then we kept getting snows after that.

And it's like we did not see the grass in our yard until April.

And David, people just don't understand.

It's like we were like living in the Arctic Circle.

At least it felt like it to us, and that was when I first remember meteorologists or weathermen at the time, I guess, say, you know something about the wind chill.

We'd never really talked about wind chill up into that.

Now people say, what's the wind chill formula?

It is a long string.

It's not easy to figure out, but at the same time, it's like it's important because, it's taking your body heat away from you and it does impact you.

Well, that was a dangerous storm.

I know the pictures of all the stranded vehicles along Interstate 64.

I mean, nobody was going anywhere.

No, not at all.

It was it was rough.

It really was.

There were drifts that were so high from that wind.

It was basically like a hurricane on land in the middle of winter is what it was, just an incredible low pressure system.

Of course, I know this looking back at the weather data that we had back then, because I just lived it, I wasn't a meteorologist at that time, but man, it was just an incredible storm and it impacted so many people.

I just remember talking about drifts that were up to the tops of light poles in some areas.

You know, people just don't understand how bad that was.

And back then, I mean, we had a warning system and we knew something was coming maybe in the next day or two.

And of course, now we know maybe five or seven days ahead that something's coming.

Yeah, because technology has gotten so much better, David, and these computers these supercomputers that crank out all this data, you couldn't do it on your own.

You've got to have these supercomputers helping out.

We've got so many different models and all this different guidance that we can use.

And yeah, it works a lot better than it used to.

It just in my career and I've been doing this since 1990, it's like, yeah, I've noticed a big change that three degree guarantees is a lot easier to get now than it was 15 years ago.

Let me tell you that.

David So where did you go to school to learn about meteorology, Ron?

Well, I started, I went, I got my broadcasting degree at Western Kentucky University.

This is back in the eighties, found out pretty quickly.

After that, I needed to get a meteorology degree.

So when I was up at Purdue or at least West Lafayette, I had a job in television up there.

It's my first real job, I like to say.

I had a job at the cable outfit in Owensboro was my first job, I guess, out of college.

But I thought, I need to get my meteorology degree.

Purdue has an excellent meteorology program.

But before I started at Purdue and I'd already signed up to start classes at Purdue, I got a job down in Paducah, Kentucky.

Well, Paducah, Kentucky does have the National Weather Service office there, which was very convenient.

And so what I ended up doing and this is back in the nineties, I did it correspondence.

I mean I would, they would send me lecture tapes.

I would sit there and watch lecture tapes every day.

I would, you know, buy my books like you do.

And then when it was time for a test, I would go down to the National Weather Service office there in Paducah.

They would put me in a room, nobody else there.

They take the test out of the packet from Mississippi State, it’s Mississippi State, and I take the test for an hour and then they come back in, put the test in the envelope.

They took care of it.

That was the way I got my meteorology degree.

Now, at the very end, we did have to have oral finals.

I mean, we had to go down there and give a 15 minute presentation on some weather that's unique to your area, at least relatively unique to your area.

And since I'd just gone through an ice storm in Lafayette and I knew that we also had that here.

I thought we’ll just talk about the difference between, you know, well, how do you get ice instead of snow or instead of rain?

And just the fact that there's a warm layer of air in the atmosphere that has to melt that snow and then it refreezes on the way down and that's how you get sleet pellets.

and just basically explained that for 15 minutes.

And that's, and then I got my degree.

So it worked out pretty well.

Your first TV gig was that you said in Owensboro?

Owensboro was a little cable outfit.

It was Cable 2 at the time.

I think it later became Cable 8, but a lot of people in Evansville got their start there in Owensboro.

And so it was really need to have but it was also radio, too.

So I got to do a lot of radio.

I would do the the television news and weather, and I did the radio news and weather.

And I really got a good experience in both areas.

And I just loved it.

I mean, it was a fun job.

Of course, I was fresh out of college and stuff and it was just fun.

And we're all young and just having a good time.

And but then, you know, I thought, alright I've got to get another job.

I can't just keep living on on $4.50 an hour.

You know what I'm saying?

I wasn't making much money.

So that's when I moved on to West Lafayette, then Paducah, and then I came back home.

I will say this, though, when I got the job from the news director at Channel seven, and it's like it was I was down in Paducah and I'd been there for a couple of years and the phone rings, It's Halloween, I'm dressed as Fred Flintstone.

And so I pick up the phone on Halloween afternoon.

I go, yabba dabba doo.

And he goes, This is David Smith, the news director over at Channel 7 in Evansville and I thought oh, hey, yeah.

Good thing he had a good sense of humor, Dave did.

And he did eventually hire me, even though I picked up the phone on my call for a job as Fred Flintstone.

Any other TV folks in your family?

Well, here's the thing I remember.

Not really.

I mean, my brother actually worked with me or worked right after me at Cable 2 as a photographer, but he lasted about a year.

And then he got a job down in Bowling Green.

He thought, no I don't need it.

I mean, he's lucky, too, You know, back then, back in the nineties, I mean, when we were getting started and stuff and my brother Raleigh, I mean, he got that gig.

It's like, man, we had three quarter inch decks.

Oh, yeah, it's like a VHS, only it's bigger.

You know, the tape is, but it's better quality.

But you had these big decks, bigger than VCRs.

I mean, they were about twice the size and probably twice as heavy.

You carry that you had to have a battery belt, you know, that you'd carry around, then these big, you know, tripods that were pretty heavy and you had the big cameras.

So being a photographer, I mean, you you're getting weighed down, it’d wear you down, too in a lot of you know, when you are having to walk a long way to get the story or whatever it was.

And so, yeah, I mean, I did that.

I did it all.

And that's one thing about, you know, starting from like Owensboro and moving on is because you're going to do it all.

I mean, I shot I mean, I edited I remember one job I had up in Lafayette.

I started the morning news program up there, and I did everything.

I mean, I came in, I had to do police beats and I remember our news director said, look, it's not enough just to call the police on the phone and say, hey, what's been going on?

You've got to go there in person or they won't give you all the information.

So I drive out to the state police post.

I would drive to the sheriff's office, I would drive to the city police.

In fact, there were two city police because it was Lafayette and West Lafayette that I hit both of those.

And that's before I even started to start putting the news together.

Then I’d come back.

I would write it.

I was producing the show.

And then also to put the weather together, too.

And it's like it was just and then I edited and back then I was editing on tape, and a lot of those tape machines aren't like digital.

I mean, now everybody's got Windows moviemaker and digital editing.

That's what we have now to not moviemaker, but I mean digital editing, it's so much easier than editing on tape.

And David, you've edited on tape before.

You're putting in in points and out points.

Sometimes that tape slips a little bit.

Oh, yes.

And it's awful because you have to keep re-editing, re-editing to get it where you want it to that exact frame, you know, 30 frames a second, but you want it on that exact frame and that second.

So yeah, it was a difficult job.

But you know what?

I think it helped me to grow up, you know, and become more professional.

Of course, you grew up in Owensboro.

We talked about that and we didn't find out where you went to high school.

Did you go to Daviess County or Owensboro High or did you?

Well, I started at Owensboro High School, but I had gone to a Catholic grade school, K through, well, K I didn't even have to go to kindergarten for whatever reason.

I didn't.

I think it was optional back then, but one through eight I went to Immaculate Grade School, which is now where the Owensboro Catholic Middle School is same place, same building.

And then I went to Owensboro High School for two years, made a lot of friends there.

I enjoyed it, but I missed my friends at Catholic.

But my mom said, we can't afford Catholic.

Well, I don't know what happened on the first day of school, one of my brothers, who was younger than me, went to OHS and I guess he got into a fight or something like that.

And the next thing I know, Mom's hauling us off to Owensboro Catholic.

So I finished up there and I graduated from Owensboro Catholic.

Okay.

And I understand from one of my sources, Gretchen Ross, the morning anchor.

Yes, cohort.

You rode your bicycle across the blue bridge?

More than once, David, more than once.

The thing was, back then again, this is like, I think, the early eighties and stuff, and I was just a kid.

Well, I mean, I was probably 12, 13 years old, but it was known that the better fireworks were in Indiana, not in Kentucky.

Kentucky only had like smoke bombs and firecrackers.

Well, the better stuff is across the river.

So, of course, we didn't have a car at that time, but we did have our bikes.

I had my Schwinn heavy duty because I was a paper boy and a buddy of mine he said, Ron, let's go.

Let's go across, across to Indiana.

I said, over the blue bridge?

That's a two lane bridge.

And it's a narrow two lanes!

It’s not even a wide two lanes.

It’s like, there we are.

I can only imagine what the drivers were saying as we were trying to cross that bridge.

Oh my.

And then what was even worse than the bridge, if you can imagine, was when you got after the bridge, you know, that is a raised road, but it drops off really fast.

There's like no shoulder, what used to be 231.

But it's a road just north of the bridge heading toward Reo and the drive-in from Owensboro.

And it's like, I mean, those semis come flying by and about knocked you into, you know, down that hill, into that flood water, whatever was down there, the swamp.

Yeah.

That's the bottomland.

Yeah, it really is.

It is.

It’s up near Patronville in that area.

And of course, the kicker to the whole story is David, we get across there and the fireworks shop is closed.

So you risk your life for nothing and you go back across the bridge.

We called the next time and then we went across a second time.

Second, and that was it, so.

Did you walk your bikes across, or did you ride them?

We would ride them when we could.

We’d look behind us to see if there was anybody, yeah.

Oh.

Did your parents know about this trip?

Nope, no they sure didn’t.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea, a good idea.

And also, Gretchen said you must have shared a lot of stuff with Gretchen.

I mean, I guess during the commercial breaks, a lot of banter goes on.

Yeah.

Oh, there's plenty of that.

Yes.

In the morning show.

On the menu at your home, you didn't eat Spam?

No.

But something called Treet “t-r-e-e-t”, Right.

Which is different than Spam.

Well, yes, it's different.

It is actually.

The poor man's Spam is what it is.

If you can't afford Spam, you got to go with Treet.

And I'll never forget.

I mean, you pop open that jar.

You got all that jelly.

I did some research on Treet and Spam.

Okay.

Now Treet was started by Armour.

That's right, the Armour Star.

The Armour Star in 1939.

Okay.

That's chicken and pork.

Ah gotcha.

Now Spam is ham and pork.

Okay, so we actually had some chicken in the Treet.

So I guess I don't maybe the ham and poor combination is more expensive.

I don't know.

I guess so, I guess the chicken was.

But Treet, obviously you fed the family.

Yeah it fed the family, but you know what else I know a lot of people still eat this.

I don't.

But you know, because to me, it's a liver paste.

But braunschweiger, I mean, that was the thing I had.

We had Treet, we cut up Treet and sometimes we'd fry it and then we'd have braunschweiger.

We’d eat that for sandwiches and stuff like that.

We cut them into those little like discs, you know, and I think a lot of people still eat braunschweiger, I don't.

Liver sausage.

Yeah, that's what it is.

It comes in those tubes and stuff like that.

So yeah, I spent my time eating some not exactly high quality meat.

But that's, uh, that’s Tri-State food.

I’m sure it’s good for you.

Yeah.

I mean, eating liver is good, plenty of iron in that, you know.

That’s right.

And also as we're going with the Gretchen Ross stuff.

Okay.

She said you love to sing Oklahoma to the studio crew.

Yeah, that's the thing.

And I used to embarrass my son.

My son's 25 now, but when he would be in the back seat of the car with his friends, I'd always singing this.

The reason why I know Oklahoma so well, David, is because when I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of albums.

My mom and dad, for whatever reason, and my dad was a musical person, we just didn't have a lot of albums.

But one of the like six or seven albums, before my uncle, I guess, felt pity on us and gave us some old Beatles albums.

You know, we're growing up in the seventies, but it's like we had the cast album to Oklahoma.

Why?

I don't know.

So I'd always belt it out.

The Broadway cast?

Yes.

Oklahoma, yes.

{singing} Gordon MacRae and like the whole gang?

That's right.

It was like you know the big belting like that.

Oh, yeah.

But what do we do to my son when he's in the back seat, I'd always hold that last note the longest I could I’d go [singing] and do it like that and the other kids liked it.

My son would be so embarrassed, you know, like that.

But, yeah.

He was just in the car?

Oh, absolutely.

With his buddies?

Of course!

Oh, gosh.

He was not a happy son that day.

Well, there's a lot of good stuff in Oklahoma about, you know, the corn is high as an elephant’s eye.

That's right.

I mean, it's something that a meteorologist would approve.

I would like that.

You know, I really got into basically forecasting for farmers when I was up in West Lafayette.

When I was up there back in the nineties before the reorganization with the National Weather Service, of course, we had a Weather Service office here in Evansville and that was shut down and they had a Weather Service office up in West Lafayette.

But that was that was the specific Midwest AG.

I mean, it was focused on AG for the entire Midwest.

So that was their thing.

But they ended up losing their office too, but in the reorganization.

But yeah, I learned a lot about farming and you know, like you say, the corn is, I said, Is that really true?

Because I knew that from Oklahoma.

They said, Well, that'd be a really good stand up this far north, maybe down where you are, you get as high as the elephant’s eye by the 4th of July, but we're not getting to quite that high up here in Lafayette.

And Ron, of course, it has to be advantage an advantage broadcasting the weather, really, in your backyard.

I know I've been here most of my life.

I mean, with the exception of college down in Bowling Green and of course, my time spent at Paducah and West Lafayette, but I mean, yeah, I love the Tri-State, I, you know, you know what I found out about the Tri-State, you know, in Western Kentucky in particular, when I moved up to West Lafayette and I said, where can I find some good chopped mutton up here?

Because, you know, I grew up with that old hickory chopped mutton.

Right?

And it's like they said mutton?

Is that lamb meat?

What?

Well, you can't get that here.

There was nothing that is kind of unique to this area.

And I didn't think that.

And when you're growing up in a certain area, you don't you don't think it's any different here than it is out, you know, in Idaho or wherever it might be.

And yet you find out when you go to these places it is a little different.

But I think the people were warmer here, and that's one thing I think it seemed like to me the farther I moved north, the colder the people got.

I mean, it's not like they were I mean, don't get me wrong.

I'm just saying they're not quite as friendly.

There's that warmth here that I really enjoyed.

Well, that's a cold area up there.

Yes, it is.

Yes, it is.

Northern Indiana.

And that it's kind of like the plains.

Yeah, it’s flat, I mean, there's nothing to stop the wind.

Well, we have a wind farm up there now.

Well, they need those because we might as well harness that wind.

Well, sure, definitely.

Of course, you also have the advantage, you know, the history terrain and how to pronounce Robards.

Yes, I do.

Yes, I do.

It helps.

You know, it always helps.

And Dubois County, not “doo-BWAH”.

Yeah.

And, of course, It's Daviess County, Kentucky.

And I believe they were named after the same man.

How is that possible?

I don't understand.

I guess that's just something that was passed on by generation.

You don't mess with it though, definitely.

Of course, you do live remotes and you've been everywhere, man.

Yeah, I have, pretty much.

Fall Festivals, county fairs, fundraisers.

Of course, the Fall Festival is always a big event for any weather person going, doing the remotes at the Fall Festival.

Right.

And at West Franklin Street, anything can happen and probably does happen there.

Yeah I know.

Unscripted.

Well, it is.

Well, I always like to do eating contests and I think that's always fun.

Oh yeah.

And like what I'll do is like, they sell puppy chow there at one of the booths, maybe more than one, but I'll get some puppy chow and I'll say, Okay, guys, we're going to have a puppy chow eating contest.

I know the Heimlich so I can help them out if they need it.

Right.

They say Ron, one of these days.

I said, look, I just tell them don't overdo it.

But and I'll say, okay, now here's the thing, though.

I'll put it right down the ground.

I said if it's puppy chow, you have to eat it like a puppy.

So you got to get down on all fours and eat it like a puppy.

So they’ll go down on all fours eating the puppy chow out of the bowl, no hands.

And you have adults doing this?

Oh absolutely.

That makes it more fun.

The kids wouldn't mind that a bit!

Or when I have like these donut ball challenges, I'll get powdered donuts and I get them about 15 feet away from each other and you toss try to toss them in the person's mouth.

And it's more fun when you put a little extra like syrup or some kind of like chocolate stuff on there, make it stickier.

And I felt so sorry for this one kid who had glasses on and he kept missing the powdered sugar kept, you know, basically covering up his glasses.

He couldn't even see.

But it was funny.

But the thing is, this is what happened one time.

I mean, it's not all fun.

I remember one time I thought, you know what I'm going to do this year?

I'm going to have, I’m going to give someone some money, these kids some money, and they go out and get me like four or five different things that came from the booth and then I will eat it like a Dagwood Bumpstead sandwich, right?

Oh, okay.

And I did.

I did that one time, one Monday as I started the fall festival and it's like they run out, they get this stuff one of them, of course, a brain sandwich.

So that was the first and only time I've eaten a brain sandwich as part of this Dagwood Bumstead thing, and I’d start eating that on the air.

Well, the next day I thought that really went well.

I'll do it again.

So I saw this group of kids.

They're a little older, probably 12, 13 years old.

And they were walking.

I said, Guys, here's what we're going to do I'm going to give this $20.

You go out there and buy four different things at $5 a pop and come back and bring me and we're going to make it into a sandwich.

I never saw those kids or that $20 again David.

That's when I put that contest to a halt.

I said, we're not doing that anymore.

Oh, they saw an opportunity.

Yeah, they took it they're probably riding the rides.

Oh, definitely.

Oh, but they weren't buying things for me, I know that.

So what's your favorite Fall Festival food?

Without a doubt, it's a pulled pork parfait, and that is the first booth I hit every single time.

It's the Outdoor Boaters Club.

And like, that is just a good I don't know if you ever had it, but it's like a Dairy Queen, you know, parfait only instead of like, you know, whipped cream, you got mashed potatoes and then you got like, baked beans, like in layers in like a in a parfait cup.

and then you got the pulled pork in there and they usually top it off with instead of a cherry a cherry tomato.

It sounds wonderful.

It is wonderful.

It's the best thing out there.

There's so many good things to eat out there, but that's definitely one of those I always hit.

Well and every year they always try to throw something different in there too.

Right, oh I know, that’s what makes it fun.

I’m always like, what's new.

I remember one time this little girl, her mom came up to me and she goes, Yes, you know what?

She got a straight A's this year.

And I told her she can have anything she wants here at the Fall Festival.

I said oh my goodness, that's awesome.

You go get it.

Well, they went out to get that and I'm doing the weather.

I come back, you know, they come back my way.

I said, Well, what did you get, little girl?

She goes, salad on a stick.

I said, Are you kidding me?

Of all these, you could have like a donut burger, you’ve got all these different things.

You got salad on a stick?

It was like a skewer it had like a cherry tomato, celery.

I'm thinking, Oh, my goodness.

Oh, but if you had that challenge, you to come back with something really bizarre, I'm sure as a kid.

I would have gotten the biggest, you know, thing I could possibly get, probably like a big old tenderloin or maybe a big old elephant ear.

That's what I was going to say, elephant ear.

Okay, now you go to a lot of schools.

Yes.

I mean, that's that's part of your job, really.

It is.

Being out in the public, and so what are some frequently asked questions when you go to these schools?

Well, they'll be, almost the first thing they ask is how much money you make.

They go right to that.

That's right.

I'm thinking you don't really want to know about the science behind it or anything?

No, you want the money.

You’re making money doing this.

Right before COVID, this was about three or four years ago, David, I remember going to this one school.

I just remember they said, you want to come talk to our school?

I'd never heard of the school, but there's been so much consolidation, you know?

Sure.

That type of thing and I said, yeah, I'll come speak at your school.

It’s in Owensboro or whatever.

And so I check, I confirm the day of, and I said, okay, I'm heading to a place, what is this place?

She told me the name and then I get there, I find out it is a preschool.

I don't know if you've ever done this.

I’m sitting there thinking I'm going to talk weather to preschoolers?

So I get in there and then the teacher goes, Ron don’t worry.

We've got a weather book you just sit here and read the weather book.

And they were like four years old, you know, I thought, Well, I can deal with that.

So I start reading the weather story of the day.

I think it was Partly Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs or something like that.

Yeah.

I thought that's pretty cool.

I said, Well, guys, it's, story's over.

I'm going to head on out now.

And then the teacher goes, No, no, Ron, we want you to speak to another classroom.

I said, Oh, okay, that's cool.

I'll read another book.

She goes, Well, no, these are going to be three year olds in this classroom.

David, I spoke to four classrooms that day and each group got progressively younger.

So you're herding cats at the end?

I was talking to year and a half year olds in high chairs with a puppet, seriously, I'm not kidding you, with a puppet on my last talk.

So I thought, you know, I've had some good discussions in weather with a lot of high school students and middle school students, but I have never talked to one and a half year olds about sun with a puppet.

I still don’t think they gleaned anything from that.

So now you do some screening before you go to schools?

Yes, I guess I do.

Good teachers though, I enjoyed them.

Now when you're on the air covering severe weather, that does happen occasionally around here.

Unfortunately, we have severe weather.

I mean, we like to have a lot of fun, but every once in a while we have to get serious.

And because really, property and lives are at stake.

Right.

Now covering severe weather can go on for hours.

And when you have these tornado warnings, sometimes you're on the air for hours.

Right.

You know, it is.

We go wall to wall.

Any time there's a tornado warning in the viewing area.

And I know a lot of viewers aren't too fond of that because if they're watching a good show.

Sure, or sports event.

Right.

Or sports event, and I get that and it's like maybe the warning is for, you know, Pike County, I mean, for Petersburg and the people down in Madisonville are thinking, you know, sorry about it for them, but we want to watch this game.

Right.

Well, we've got like it's kind of unique, the setup we've got now.

I do like this.

If there is a big sporting event or something, you know, is really important that people want to see, you know, it's not impacting the whole Tri-State, it's just maybe one county or two counties, what we can do is say we're going to have continuing coverage on Channel 7, or CW 7, and you can watch the game still on ABC 25 and we'll update you if we have any additional warnings.

So we're still going wall to wall, but we're doing it on in a different venue.

And what we've got now we'll do Facebook lives during the entire event and we're really fortunate where I am.

We've got five meteorologists there.

I mean, so, you know, between the five of us, if it's all hands on deck, we've got two people work at Facebook Live and social media, and we've got, you know, two people working on the air, ABC 25 and, no, CW seven.

So, I mean, it really is.

I mean it we're well equipped to handle that.

So yeah, I think we cover severe weather as well as anyone.

And I really am proud of our team coverage.

And of course, the last time we had to go wall to wall with all hands on deck was December 10th of last year.

And I've never seen a long track tornado in my career like what I saw that night.

I mean, that monster started, you know, down in Tennessee, and it just kept tracking across Kentucky.

Now, it did drop.

I think it pulled up briefly, so it wasn't the longest track tornado in history, but it was pretty close.

And we all know the devastation that went on in the Tri-State, Dawson Springs, Bremen and those areas even, you know, lasting into Ohio County.

I mean, it was just, just a beast.

You know, when it when it first happened, all the attention seemed to be on Mayfield.

Right and Mayfield was leveled, I mean, it's unbelievable.

Right, and of course, but then we started really realizing the damage in Dawson Springs and Bremen.

Yeah.

And it was just as devastating there.

And incredible.

And they're still rebuilding from there, from that terrible storm.

Right.

Now, cooperation with the National Weather Service, how important is that cooperation?

That's critical because, I mean, they need us.

We need them is what it boils down to, because I mean, they can't just shout out their offices, you know?

Alright, we've got a tornado warning, right?

I mean, they could push it out on social media, but it just, you know, to be able to have, you know, the television stations with meteorologists basically pushing, you know, these warnings and watches out, the warnings are obviously more important than the watch.

Yeah, that's we have to work hand in hand.

Sometimes we don't always agree with the National Weather Service.

But, you know, we think maybe that watch shouldn't be issued or maybe that warning should be lifted right now.

This storm's not strong anymore.

But you know, but sometimes, you know?

You know, most of the time we agree and it's like it's one of those things.

But they make the call.

We don't make the calls on warnings.

I think people need to know that.

That's not our call.

That's not a TV station’s call.

We may not agree with it most of the times we do, but that's the National Weather Service and that's what, you know, that's their job.

And the watches and the warnings come out of their office and we relay that information and then we give our expertise too, and we've got a world of experience in our weather center.

You know, we've got all hands on deck.

Of course, the Weather Service has all the sophisticated gear.

Yes, Yes.

They also have weather spotters.

Oh, we've got a great network of weather spotters.

And they all work together to come up with these uh, these forecasts and warnings.

Absolutely.

And these spotters are vital, too.

And it's like because, you know, you get this, you're always looking, you know, where the storm is coming from and what happened there.

And this is what we can expect to happen, you know, down the road if it stays strong.

The average length of time a tornado stays on the ground is only 7 minutes.

I mean, that one on December 10th was just an absolute aberration.

But at the same time, it's like if they do stay on the ground for a while knowing what you know, that, you know, community experience helps us to warn these other communities.

And that's one thing I never even had when I first started, David was a storm tracker where you could track that storm.

I know, that incredible!

I love it and it's like it's it's a vital tool as far as I'm concerned.

And you can say in 7 minutes it’s going to be there.

Right.

Exactly.

And it pretty much times out.

You know, one thing I've also noticed with these storm trackers is I didn't know that town existed.

Oh, yeah.

Well, some of these these crossroads they come up with, it’s like, well, what is that?

Is there a house there?

Maybe, you know, there's a stop sign, but it's like it's one of those things.

It's like I'm learning every time I use storm tracker it seems like.

It must be something dating back into the 1800s or something like that.

I guess.

Maybe there was a village there at one time.

There might have been.

Definitely.

Yeah.

But at the same time it's a vital tool and I'm glad we have it.

So when you go out and about you’re a local personality.

Right.

People recognize you, they probably whisper a little bit, they point and then maybe they come up to you and say, Hey, Ron, how's it going?

How's the weather, Ron?

Always.

And I don't mind that.

I always tell them, you know, you know, you don't mind that we come up.

I said, No, because that means I've got a job.

I need a job.

It's like, if you're not watching, I don't have a job.

So I kind of need you.

I need the viewers.

And I'm just glad you know what I've noticed and that you probably notice this, too, David.

It's like I'll have people just say, Hey, Ron how you doing?

Like, it's like they're an old friend and I'm thinking, Do I know you?

And they go, No, but you're in my living room every day.

I know.

You know, it's like you're a friend.

I mean, you don't allow anyone in your living room, right?

No.

And it's like, so you’ve got these people who are in your living room or on TV in your living room.

It's like, you know, they're almost like they're friends of yours.

So that's kind of pretty cool.

It is cool.

It is cool.

And, you know, 99% of the time, people are really nice.

Absolutely.

I mean, just rarely will you get somebody that doesn’t like something you put on the air or something or has an issue.

They want to talk about it and I have no idea what they're talking about, but they want to tell you about it.

Oh, sure.

They'll let me know.

They want to pin you down and tell you their whole back story and oh, you keep backing away.

But.

Oh, well, you just go through it.

Absolutely.

Now, I know when I was in the TV news, every once in a while we would have consultants come in.

Right, Right.

And they want to tweak things that we put on the air.

Have you had any tweaking done to your weather casts?

Seriously, one person said we're going to get the upper hand.

We're going to do a seven day fore- I was the first one to do a seven day forecast and others were doing five.

And it's like because we were Channel 7, we were Fox 7 at the time.

And so they wanted the seven seven day.

Yeah.

It's almost like the reason why the three degree guarantee came into play is because I saw a station down in Nashville there was a five degree guarantee and they said, we've got to have some kind of forum in order to push out these umbrellas.

We had these totes umbrellas.

We thought, we've got to have something like a guarantee on your weather.

I said, Well, they do a five degree guarantee down in Nashville.

I've seen them do that when I was in college at Bowling Green, and I said, well now let's do three.

It rhymes with degree and guarantee the three degree guarantee that was actually Brick Briscoe's idea back when he worked in promotions for us back in the 1990’s.

Of course, Brick works here now and has this wonderful show.

The song show.

The song show, I love it.

And, you know, so yeah, and it's like three degree guarantee.

So I've got Brick to thank for that.

But it's like, but before that, you know, it really I mean, I really enjoy that because it's, it's a challenge really in order to get it within three degrees.

And like I said, it's gotten a lot easier than it used to.

Hmm.

Yeah, well, will it be a two degree eventually?

No, but the what the consultant said, they said we did the seven, but then they want to go one step further.

They go, let's do a 14 day.

I said 14, are you kidding me?

Oh my goodness.

I said you could do like an outlook that’s above normal kind of.

But you're not going to- They wanted specific highs and lows two weeks in advance.

Oh that’s, forget about it, that didn't last too long, David.

And of course I remember one time of course it's you know, it's not just about, you know, the weather.

It's also about like the look or whatever.

And they said you've got to wear the right colors when you're on TV.

And I remember they say, so we did, one consultant had colored me a season and I didn't realize this is like you could be a spring person, you could be a winter person, you could be a summer person or a fall person.

They for whatever reason, they dubbed me a fall person.

And I had this basically a slate of colors.

Those are the colors you can wear.

You can't wear anything else.

And the news director backed that!

I thought, oh my goodness, I said, could you change me at least to a winter?

I like some of the colors there.

Or a summer, I think the summer is good too.

I don't want to be fall.

Nothing wrong with fall!

I love fall.

It's my favorite season, but those colors I didn't really care for as much as the other ones.

Isn't that, well they go through some algorithm, I think, you know for all the stations.

I don't I never quite understand that because each market is unique.

Yeah, it is.

You try to tell them that.

Yeah.

They don't realize.

They don't realize that.

I mean this is our little part of the world here and people like things a certain way.

That's true.

And people come in from the outside, they don't realize that.

No, they don't.

And so really some of my probably my best promotion directors and people were actually from, you know, Evansville or at least the Tri-State.

They know what we like.

Definitely.

Exactly.

And Ron, doing my massive intensive research on you, I found a video of you rapping on stage at Owensboro’s Friday After Five.

Yeah.

What was that all about?

Well, it was last year, and we were going to get on stage, you know, the morning crew, Jay, Gretchen, Joe and me.

And we were going to introduce, they were called All the Cool Kids, right?

And it was like one member from like NSYNC.

It was not Justin Timberlake, but it was another guy and it was one member from Backstreet Boys was AJ McClean.

I always liked his work and then it was one guy from 98 Degrees.

It was Jeff Timmons.

So it's like the three of those guys were all the cool kids.

Well, as they started the concert, we introduced them.

We went over to the side of the stage.

We just want to hang out there.

They said they didn't mind.

Well, they had technical issues.

I didn't realize how much of that was basically, you know, recorded.

You know, it's like you had a keyboard player, but it wasn't like it wasn't like a live band.

I mean, they had this guy who was kind of working.

Well, he was having some issues, some audio issues.

And so to stall for time, Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees called me out on stage and he said Ron, can you do something for us?

Do a dance.

Well, he saw me dance and I've got one dance.

It's a kind of a modified jig, but I do it anyway.

But anyway, I know a little rapping and I thought, I told the drummer.

I said.

Man, if you could just give me a beat, I'm going to go with it.

And he said, What?

Then he, so he, I said, well, I'll just go ahead and go with it.

Well, as I started it, I look back and it was AJ McClain from the Backstreet Boys had gotten on the drum because I noticed the drum came in, I thought, oh good, the drummer's coming in with me.

And it was AJ, which was pretty cool.

Anyway, so I know.

And the reason why I know it, once again, it's me spending time in the car with my son.

It's like, Now That's Music.

They have these, I think there must be 120 of these compact disc, at least they were CDs, you know, when he was a kid.

You know, about 15 years ago.

And it's like they have all these hit songs on.

It's called Now This is Music.

Well, one of the songs that he wanted to listen to over and over again was “Getting Jiggy With It” with Will Smith.

So I know that rap by heart, because he had to listen to that CD over and over again.

Okay.

So I got out there, I said, I'll just go ahead and I know it's, you know, after what Will Smith did at the Oscars, I may not sing it again, but at the same time, I sang it this time and I got out there and I just thought, I'll just do a little dance.

[Singing] I could go on.

I won’t, I will spare you that, David.

But I know that from start to finish, and I don't need, you know, words or anything like that.

So it's like and, you know, once he started beating on it and, you know, it's like, this is great.

[singing] So it's like, yeah.

So the crowd was getting into it?

The crowd loved it.

It was like, I was surprised.

I thought, man, because I thought, what am I doing?

I mean, seriously, I'm out here.

They're coming here to see these dudes.

And but when you dance a little bit and now one thing I found out is where I, I like to karaoke, I've always done that.

And, well, at the same time, it's like you got to put on a little show.

It's one thing to have a great voice, and there are so many good voices out there.

I don't have a great voice.

If something's in my wheelhouse, I'm pretty good.

But it's like at the same time, if you kind of dance when you doing that you can get out of breath pretty fast doing that, I might add.

But it's like, but if you can dance doing that.

It's a distraction.

Well, yeah, it takes the people's, you know, ears away from the music and more focused on the other like what is this?

Because it is a funny looking dance that I did You probably saw it on the video.

It's like it's a little different than your average dance.

But yeah and so that was that was fun.

And they, they got a kick out of it.

Now, do you do this dance at the studio sometimes?

Oh, yeah.

And sometimes that too.

I mean, it’s the only one I’ve got.

I mean, that's one of the things is I work with such a good crew in the mornings and I, you know, for years I worked evenings and then they put me on mornings after the merger and I thought, okay, we'll do this.

And I found out I'm much better in mornings.

You know, I'm just I've always been kind of a morning person, strangely enough.

Now, granted, people who knew me back in the day when I was working evenings when we'd go out and karaoke are thinking I don't think so, but I do.

I just like and what I liked about the morning shift is that by that time my son was, you know, in band and he had a lot of, you know, activities I wanted to attend.

And I was I had my evenings open.

I walk out the door at 12:30, as long as there’s no severe weather, and usually there's not.

At 12:30, I'm done with the day and it's like on Friday afternoon, 12:30 I've got a two and a half day weekend.

Oh that's right.

Yeah.

I think this is a great deal.

So yeah, I really like that morning shift.

And I think I, my personality kind of lends itself more to mornings anyway.

Also, you received some national exposure on The Daily Show, just a little clip, I've seen it, your Irish accent?

Yes.

Frosted Lucky Charms.

They're magically delicious.

Well, I was doing it, it’s like, you know, I was talking to a guy on camera and we were on the air and I just go, you know, and all of a sudden I start talking.

Like I said, it's, you know, it was Saint Patty's Day and I love talking Irish on Saint Patty's Day.

I said, in order to get myself into the Irish accent, I got to talk like that, the leprechaun on frosted Lucky Charms are magically delicious.

And then I start to do my Irish.

You know, I was like, mind ya, you know they say, mind ya lot, you know, you got to go.

You got the sun there, you know, mind ya.

And then you're, you’re going to lose the sun.

But you know what the clip they use, of course I say frosted Lucky Charms are magically delicious.

I'd actually been on The Daily Show before.

I never got the Jon Stewart version, but before Jon Stewart hosted it, it was Craig Kilborn.

And they were looking for different clips from weather people and I was on the national news, but nobody knew it was me because I was dressed as The Cowardly Lion.

I'd gone into a costume shop and, you know, and I was dressed as The Cowardly Lion.

And I did, you know, a little courage, a little courage to get this forecast.

And so I did it like the, you know, the The Cowardly Lion, but then next time I was on, people knew it was me.

And I was on just recently The John Oliver Show.

So, I mean, just little clips, you know, that was for 420.

And I did, I know, I'll do this day of the day and I said, wow, there's a lot of munchies on this day.

Surprise, surprise.

And then that clip made it on.

Does somebody just troll?

That was, that was Jimmy Kimmel.

Does somebody just troll all the stations?

I don’t know, it's not like I posted on the website.

Yeah.

I don't know how they're finding these clips.

I don't either.

I really don't.

I don’t see how somebody designated to do that every day.

Maybe, I don't know.

Scan through all the weather casts around the country.

I’ve had about four or five appearances, and I don't know.

I didn't send them any clips.

I know that.

Okay.

Of course, TV and radio stations do a wonderful job helping communities during times of stress, helping storm victims with food drives, toy collections at Christmas.

WEHT has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years for Easterseals, of course.

Right.

That has to be a great feeling to be part of that effort.

It is a great feeling.

I really love that, and also the Santa Clothes Club telethon that we do just before Christmas.

I just love this to the point where, I mean, to me it just shows the generosity of the Tri-State.

Oh, it does.

You know, you know, as bad as some of these tragedies we've seen, David, over the years, it really warms my heart to know how generous the people are here in the Tri-State.

And, you know, and, you know, obviously, clothing a child's very important in wintertime.

Some of these kids, you know, I know I didn't have much, you know, when I was growing up, but I mean, I had enough to clothe myself from head to toe.

And some of these kids don't.

And I think that's really good that people, they just donate.

And the great thing about these telethons is, I mean, you know, not only you donate, you're actually getting something for it.

It might be a signed football from, you know, Lou Holtz of Notre Dame.

You know, it's like that's got some value.

And then plus, on top of that, I mean, you're helping a child.

That's, that's what I love.

I love doing those auctions because you get an instant, you know, response from these viewers and stuff like that.

And the phones are ringing and I love it.

Well, and you get to see people in the Tri-State, they come on, you get to see all these people.

Right!

So, it’s really neat, it's people watching.

Yeah.

Yeah, it really is.

It really is.

It's fun.

And it's like in telethons.

I mean, you know, you've done your share obviously over the years, David, but they're kind of dying out.

I know.

It's, for whatever reason, you know, it, they're not really a thing so much anymore.

But we still do our two telethons and I love it because I love live television.

Yeah.

One forecasting question for you.

Okay.

Forecasting snowfall, is that as tough as it seems?

The toughest thing we do, David!

I would think so.

Because, it seriously, oh, you know, because they want it down to the inch.

I think they want it down to a fraction of an inch.

It's like I could say to people usually like a ten to 1 ratio with, you know, rain to snow and it's like, or snow to rain, I guess.

And it's like if I say there's going to be like an inch of rain, nobody says anything.

But if I said ten inches of snow, which is the equivalent, you know, if it's cold enough, well, that' one funny story.

One time it's like because sometimes these snows just don't materialize like you think they will, and it turns out to be rain and not snow because it's just not quite cold enough.

And I called for, you know, a foot of snow.

I come to work the next day and actually I called for flurries, I called for flurries, I come to work the next day, a foot of snow later, and my nickname all day was flurries.

Hey, you have trouble getting to work here in those flurries you had there?

A lady from Huntingburg, Indiana, sent me a really cool postcard.

Later that week, I got it and it said, Ron, you were right, and I thought wow I haven't heard that all week.

She, she goes you said there would be light snow.

And you were right.

It snowed while it was light kept snow until it was dark.

Then you said that snow would taper.

Yeah it tapered alright, right up to the top of my porch.

And it's like I just thought that was so funny.

But you're right.

But it's so difficult.

If I mentioned snow early in the week, say we're going to have snow on Thursday, I mean, my brother, who's a teacher, I mean, you I mean, he knows better.

I'll tell him this.

He’ll text me Ron, how much snow we're going to have on Thursday?

I say Bart, it's too early to say.

I mean, I've been burned.

I mean, after what happened, that was about 20 years ago when I called for flurries and we had a foot of snow.

But it's like, you can’t call that that early.

I mean, you're going to burn yourself doing things like that.

Yeah, a dusting becomes a blizzard sometimes.

Yeah, it can.

I mean, the thing, you know, things can change between that and it's like usually about 24 to 36 hours out, we've got a pretty good handle on it.

We've done a better job over the past few years, but we just can't jump out there early.

But I think it's good that we're letting you know there's gonna be snow on Thursday on Monday, right?

Yeah.

Just don't ask me for inches.

But you know, fractions.

You know, you can be in Loogoodi and you can be in Madisonville.

Right.

You know, and the snow could be a lot different.

Absolutely it could, it could be a lot different from the west side to the east side of Evansville.

I mean, you've got a track right there.

That's true.

Yeah.

It makes a big difference.

Will we ever see Ron Rhodes with a beard?

No, that will not happen again.

But it happened once.

A former radio personality here in the Tri-State, Sam Yates, I'm sure you know.

Oh, yeah, Sam.

Sam was a character and a half and I have loved him.

But at the same time he goes, Ron, you know, I was working with him, I was the weather guy for his station at the time, and he goes, hey, we've been in this drought for two months.

I want you to, why don't you grow a beard until we get rain?

I thought, yeah, I'll do it.

Well, it was on a Friday and so I thought, okay, I'll do it, it's Friday morning.

Well, you know, I didn't think anything of it after that.

I did start to grow the beard and by Monday, I got called into the news director's office and he goes, Ron, what is this, you're going to be growing a beard and you didn't check with me on this, you know, and he said, It's too late now because I was hearing promos all- I didn't know Sam was going to blow it up that big.

Oh.

Apparently there were promos running on radio all weekend long, Ron Rhodes is going to grow a beard until we get an inch of rain.

Well, I mean, I mean, it was a solid month and a half, David, and I was still growing that beard.

I will never grow, first of all, it's so itchy.

I mean, I don't how people with beards can stand it.

Although I will say this, though, if you drop some food, you might have a late night snack later when you’re combing through your beard.

Hey, there's that piece of pasta that fell out of my mouth.

I've got myself a snack.

No, but it's like, to me, I didn't care for it.

And of course, we finally got some rain.

I remember, it was the week of the Fall Festival, of course.

Right?

Has to be the Fall Festival.

Of course.

And we had a big old downpour and I got to shave my beard, and of course, Sam made a big production of it.

You know, we went to a barbershop and we recorded it all on video.

So it was, it was a lot of fun, but I mean, growing the beard, nope, that's not happening again.

And plus, I noticed one thing, and I'm sure it'd be worse now, I've got like three or four different colors in my beard.

My dad had brown hair and his beard would be red, you know.

Well, mine was like the beard at the time because this had been 15 years ago, it was like red and brown and white, and I had it flecked off.

It was the ugliest beard you have ever seen.

There will not be another beard grown by Ron Rhodes.

Well, you heard it here first, folks.

Okay.

Meteorologist Ron Rhodes, this has been a lot of fun.

Thanks for being my guest on Two Main Street.

Now, I think we met that three degree guarantee, it was a great show.

Oh, there you go.

Thank you, David.

Thank you.

I appreciate your time.

I'm David James and this is Two Main Street, presented by Jeffrey Berger, Kim Wren, and the Berger Wealth Services team at Baird Private Wealth Management.