Stations get crazy during sweeps as they will try just about anything to get viewers to tune into the newscast.

I would love to say that as a news manager, I was never guilty of doing such a thing, but that would be a lie.

Years ago I was working at KOLD in Tucson and Weather Anchor Randy Rauch and I came up with an idea. Since the weather in Tucson is sunny and hot every day, we thought we would try a stunt to get viewers to tune into the weather.

The idea was that Randy would water ski while being pulled by one of the station’s news cars.

The biggest problem in Southern Arizona is finding a body of water to do so. There was one place called Silver Bell Lake which was more like a retention pond, where the reclaimed water would be dumped. It was basically untreated sewer water in which the ducks loved and they added their crap to the crap that was already in the water.

The first attempt for Randy to ski across the pond did not go well. He fell in shit (literally) and was covered from head to toe in poop.

But, neither Randy nor I, who was driving the news car, was giving up.

Randy pitched back to the studio and we got back into position to make a second attempt.

Thanks to my awesome driving, Randy was able to ski across the lake and although covered in shit, he was also able to deliver the 5-day forecast, which called for sunny and hot each day.

Randy Rauch became the first TV Weather Anchor to ski behind a news car across a lake full of shit, while covered in shit and still deliver the 5-day forecast.

If I remember right, I think we won an Emmy.

Maybe not.

Here is the video proof of this one-time event and yes, he almost ran over a duck in the process: