Roastee Shelby gives better than he gets

So much for Pat Miles' image as the sweetest blue-eyed beauty ever to anchor in the Twin Cities.

At Friday's "Don Shelby Roast and Fundraiser" at the University of St. Thomas' Minneapolis campus, the roastee put his former WCCO-TV co-anchor on the spit for a few minutes during his rebuttal. The event was a fund-raiser for ThreeSixty Journalism.org, a St. Thomas-based program for youth. And although I had sound system problems, I thought Miles, who concluded her TV career at KARE11, was fairly reverential in recalling her time at WCCO with Shelby, while Don ...

Well, it was all in good fun.

"She had seniority on me and she didn't suffer fools gladly. So she was going to let me know that I was just a newcomer and she was the veteran," said Shelby.

During a newscast that mentioned then-Minnesota House Speaker Robert Vanasek, Shelby said Miles mispronounced the speaker's last name. Shelby probably couldn't wait for the commercial break during which he averred: "Excuse me Pat, I think that's pronounced ..."

Miles shot back, Yeah, since [bleepin'] when?

Many in the crowd of politicians, journalists, lawyers and others, including university President the Rev. Dennis Dease, laughed, but Shelby was just warming up.

As Shelby finished the sentence "Pat and I are obsessed about our own breath," you could hear Miles, sitting next to her attorney husband, Bucky Zimmerman, laughing in the audience. Shelby then told a story about a desperate mid-newscast call of nature answered by Miles, who had popped too many of a certain breath mint that contained an ingredient that had a laxative-like side-effect. People were in tears.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar declined to repeat certain words in front of Father Dease as she gently roasted Shelby.

"Minnesota wouldn't be Minnesota without you. You're like Paul Bunyan or the Jolly Green Giant or Wally the Beerman," said Klobuchar, who concluded after allegedly reading Shelby's Wikipedia entry, "So they took what you wrote, Don, and didn't edit it." The explanation for Shelby coming to WCCO in 1978 and staying, said Klobuchar: "With 10,000 lakes, he has plenty of water to walk on."

Klobuchar was good, but former Sen. Norm Coleman, attending with his wife, Laurie, really put the heat to Shelby. It's always sad to see a respected newscaster leave after such exemplary service to the community, said Coleman, who then added, We'll miss you, Heather Brown. (Brown is leaving WCCO-TV after 4 1/2 years for WNYW-TV in New York, which she'll probably leave for the network if she so desires. She's THAT good.)

Shelby evened the score by ruminating about how there are always rumors about politicians. "None of them turn out to be true," said Shelby, "In Norm Coleman's case every rumor I found to be absolutely true ..."

Ashley Shelby, eldest daughter and author of "Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City," baked Dad on low heat with humanizing reflections on his dedication as a father, and this about dinners: "Dad's always the first to finish, often under three minutes, and the first to leave unless Mom begs him to be decent and stay, in which case he'll sit there patiently while someone far less interesting talks about something he finds totally boring.

"The truth is this egomaniac is the most pathologically grateful human being I've ever known. After getting sober he gave himself completely to the state that forgave him for his public failure. Dad has never forgotten that forgiveness, and he's never stopped being grateful. What people mistake for know-it-allness is actually the impulse of an explorer. Congratulations, Dad. We can't wait to see where you go next."

Shelby was touched but quipped to the audience that Ashley was "adopted," nonetheless.

Startribune.com/video mostly focuses on the reception, but there is rare footage of Barbara Shelby, the wife who checks Don's ego by asking, "Don't you have some place to go?"

Despite Shelby's Pat Miles revelations, expect to see her reunited with him at the anchor desk during his final week, along with maybe Colleen Needles, maybe even Paul Douglas, and perhaps others. Shelby's final 10 p.m. newscast is Monday, Nov. 22.