SPOKANE, Wash. — Three KREM 2 News anchors were nominated in the Best of the Inland Northwest poll from the Inlander.
The public voted on online ballots for the 2022 Best of the Inland Northwest Poll. The winners were published Thursday in the March 24 edition of The Inlander.
The poll's categories that KREM' 2 news won included best author, best TV anchorperson, best TV sportscaster, best TV weathercaster, and best charity event.
Best TV Sportscaster
KREM 2 Sports Director Brenna Greene was nominated as the Best TV Sportscaster in the Inland Northwest by the Inlander's 2022 Best Of Poll. Greene won first place after the public voted for their favorite sportscaster.
Greene is the only woman on the TV Sportscaster list who was nominated in this category and is also the first woman to win first place. Greene shared the news in a Twitter post on Wednesday, where she thanked the public who nominated her.
"When I first got to Spokane, I was hopeful that someday I would place third in the Inlander’s Best of Poll. That was my ceiling in my eyes, and I was more than okay with that," Greene said on a Twitter post. "I had an idea before I was told that maybe this news was coming my way, but I verbalized to many people that there was no conceivable way I could win this. It didn’t compute to me, yet here I am."
According to Inlander's news article, some of the viewers who nominated Greene said she was the best as she always put on a smile when doing her job.
"She really cares a lot about sports and has a good rapport with the people she interviews," Patty M. wrote on the poll to the Inlander.
"She always seems very knowledgeable and puts a great smile on her face when she does her job. Love the positivity she expresses every time she's on the TV," wrote Tonya K.
Best TV Anchorperson
Our KREM 2 News TV Anchor Whitney Ward also made it into the 2022 Best of the Inland Northwest poll. Ward won third place as the Best TV Anchorperson.
Ward joined KREM in 2013. She started as an anchor of the station’s weekend newscasts before moving to anchor its late evening newscasts. During the last six years, she’s also served as KREM’s chief investigative reporter, winning three Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for her investigations into Idaho’s foster care system, WSU’s Bear Center and widespread water contamination around Fairchild Air Force Base.
Best TV Weathercaster
Former KREM 2 Chief Meteorologist Tom Sherry was awarded the Inlander’s Best TV Weathercaster for the 28th year in a row.
Two days before he was set to retire from a distinguished television broadcast career, Tom was presented with one more honor from Spokane residents.
The Inlander said that voting was robust this year. The paper logged more than double the normal vote totals, making the results even more representative of the community’s preferences than ever before.
Tom received the award on March 2, 2022, during the KREM 2 News at 4, just 2 days before he officially retired from KREM 2 News. The rest of the annual readers' poll winners aren’t being announced until the March 23 edition of the Inlander, but the paper made an exception in honor of Tom’s impending retirement.
No person in the “Best Of” people category has won as many times in a row as Tom Sherry. After Tom won Best TV Weathercaster ten times in a row, he was inducted into the Inlander Hall of Fame.
“I don’t have a lot of Emmy’s. I never enter those awards that are judged by people in the field. I really just want to be important and judged by the viewer. I just felt like that was the most important judge out there was the viewer, that they let you come into their house during special times- dinner time, bedtime, morning time - and they let you come into their home and really be part of their family,” he explained. “That means more to me than any of the other awards I’ve been allowed to have and the Inlander ones are, by far, the ones more important to me because it’s the viewer or the reader.”
Best Charity Event
Tom's Turkey Drive was nominated as one of the Best Charity Events on the Inland Northwest poll, and it won second place on the list.
Tom's Turkey Drive helps provide 11,000 families with a complete Thanksgiving meal and is a holiday tradition in the Inland Northwest.
Each November, KREM 2 asks people in the Inland Northwest to donate at area Rosauers or online. A $20 donation buys a complete Thanksgiving meal for someone to prepare at home.
Tom’s Turkey Drive started in 1999 to try and help provide a unified way to provide all the fixings for people to make a Thanksgiving dinner. It was about empowering people to make their own meals and their own memories.
Other stories: Days before retirement, Tom Sherry voted Inland Northwest’s Best TV Weathercaster for 28th year in a row
