KATHY SMITH | gutfest

The 2015 Dragging the Gut Festival Grand Marshal was longtime Portland TV News Anchor Kathy Smith who started her Portland TV career more than four decades ago. She first came to Portland from Boston TV in 1974. She had been a behind the scenes news producer, but KATU Channel 2 decided to put her on the air doing the morning news. Then, in 1975 she became Jim Bosley's first sidekick on AM Northwest.

In 1976, she was hired away by KIRO- TV in Seattle where she did the Noon, Five and 11 newscasts. In 1977 she returned to KATU, and two years later moved across the river to KGW Channel 8 and started anchoring the Noon, Five and 11 newscasts. She retired in 1985, but couldn't stay away and went back to KGW-TV to do a new 4 p.m. newscast. In 1996, after a few years off the air, she joined KPTV Channel 12's Good Day Oregon. An on-air accident caused hearing loss in 2001 and ended her career.

Throughout her career here she worked with some of the original Portland news anchors like Richard Ross, and Gov. Tom McCall. She herself is an Oregon TV news pioneer being the second woman in Portland to be a main news anchor. She has been involved in the community serving on the Board of the Oregon Food Bank, and is currently involved with the Tom McCall Legacy Project.

She says she has had a "love affair" with McMinnville for decades. She and Pete Schulberg were Masters of Ceremony for the Grand Opening of the McMinnville Community Center in the late 1970s, and she's even been a Biggest Turkey contest judge for Turkey-Rama.

So, we honor Kathy Smith, a local television icon as the 2015 Grand Marshal at the Dragging the Gut Festival. She will be driven down the Gut at 7 p.m. on Saturday, August 22, 2015 during the festival. Plan to be there to wave and help us honor her!!