Shelly Monahan, better known as "Sunshine Shelly" on the
air in Spokane during the '70s and '80s, is returning to
Spokane.
She has signed a deal with KHQ-6 to become the station's
morning weather anchor. She will begin on Nov. 13.
She is presently the weekend weather anchor at WMAQ-TV in
Chicago, the NBC affiliate in the third largest TV market
in the country. She signed a $2 million-plus contract with
that station three years ago, but when the contract was up,
she decided it was time to come home.
"In this business, you try to see if you can make it into
the top 20 markets, the top 10, the top five," she said
from her home in Chicago. "But it all makes you realize
that more money is not exactly better."
She said that she and her husband, Michael Oddino, a
director-producer in sports, talked about possibly moving
to Detroit or Los Angeles. But then they thought, "What
about going back to Spokane?"
The idea appealed to them mainly because they want to raise
their two daughters, 5 and 7, in Spokane. She describes
herself as a "farm girl from Chattaroy" and she has many
relatives in the area.
So she called an old friend, Patricia McRae, the news
director at KHQ-6. "I said, `It's presumptuous of me to
ask, but what if . . . ?" McRae and KHQ-6 general manager
Lon Lee were receptive, to put it mildly. "It's a
tremendous opportunity for us," said Lee. "She's loved and
respected and well-known. She just owned this town in the
early-to-mid-'80s." Monahan's husband has landed a spot
with Fox Sports Net out of Seattle, flying around the
Northwest to broadcast games.
She began as a radio personality at KJRB-AM and then became
the weathercaster at KREM-2 in 1981.
She went through a highly publicized personal trauma in
1981, when she became a rape victim during the time of the
notorious South Hill Rapist rampage. Then in 1986, her
fiance, climber Kim Momb, died in an avalanche. So in 1986,
she felt it was "time to move on." She went to stations in
Sacramento and Seattle before moving to Chicago three years
ago. Now, she is returning because of the "quality of life"
and the chance to work with longtime friend McRae.
"You go full circle," she said. "The opportunity to do this
is, literally, a dream come true."