Deputy Mayor Tom Houser sitting in for the vacationing mayor Joe Sushire on this Wednesday, December

27th. Do I have the correct date? Yes, you do. Very good. You're in charge of the count. Do you know

that tomorrow will mark the 30? Jesus, it's been so many years. I can't remember. I my first day

in television news was December 28th, 19th, gulp, 83. So you got the crap. Everybody's on

vacation. We better bring in Houser. That's what you got the call to the big leagues. Here's

my favorite story about getting offered the job. It was I had interviewed for the job during

finals week at the University of St. Thomas drove down to Austin, Minnesota in a blizzard,

essentially. They were stunned when I showed up at the door. You know, I'm out in the lobby of this

little TV station, which Hubbard Broadcasting now owns by. Sure. Sure. So my career has come full circle.

And I show up and I'm out there, you know, pounding the snow off my boots and stuff and the woman

is sitting there. The receptionist and I said, I'm here to see Bill Cathcart, who was the general

manager at the time. And she said in your name, and I told her my name and she calls up to him. And

I could just tell by her conversation, he was stunned that I drove down in a blizzard,

which is probably the reason I got the job. He's thinking, well, we got a hire of now. If he's

willing to come down here to do this, he'll probably go the extra mile to get a new story every now and

then. At least maybe maybe that's what he was thinking. Who knows? Maybe he just thought, well,

he's that big of an idiot to drive through. Let's see what else I'll do. Let's see if he'll work

during the holiday week. So anyway, this was on like December 16th. And I was thinking, oh,

this is great. They're they're they called and offered me the job the day after a very festive

graduation party. I graduated in December after I double majored at St. Thomas. And that's why I was

there for an extra semester before you started getting any ideas. Don't worry. I spent five years at

Mancay to stay. You get none of the politics. A double majored in journalism, political science,

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