[Description by Uncle Ricky for contributor Shotgun Tom Kelly.]

Fred Lewis (June 19, 1929 – September 8, 2007) was a veteran broadcaster who worked for a number of radio and TV stations throughout his career. Born in Chicago, Mr. Lewis attended Roosevelt College where he earned a bachelor’s degree in speech arts, followed by a master’s degree in speech communication from Marquette University. He worked as a newscaster and sportscaster in Chicago, Milwaukee, Palm Beach Florida, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Texarkana, Texas, before moving to San Diego in 1961. He was a newsman at KGB during the “Boss Radio” era, and team announcer for the San Diego Gulls hockey team in the 1960s and the San Diego Rockets NBA team in the early 1970s.
Mr. Lewis had a powerful, authoritative news delivery, which became more casual for his TV appearances in later years. Beginning in 1994, he conducted interviews with prominent San Diegans on his weekly cable television show, “The Heart of San Diego”. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in January 2002, but his TV show continued to air until August 17, 2007, when at the age of 78, he became too ill to work.

In November 2006, Fred Lewis recorded an interview with Shotgun Tom Kelly. The program was one of 653 interviews in the series, and was broadcast in December, 2006. In this interview, Lewis asks Tom about his beginnings in radio and highlights of his ongoing career. He also shows rare pictures from Shotgun Tom’s personal collection, and a short video clip of Shotgun Tom on KRTH in Los Angeles. The video and audo quality of this exhibit is excellent, and best enjoyed via broadband.