For more than 30 years in Las Vegas, Sherry Swensk has been serving the news the same way: Sunny-side up.
“I’ve never pretended to be anything but who I am,” Swensk says. “I’m not a diva. I’m not a showgirl. I just want to talk to my neighbors on television every morning, get their day started with a cup of coffee and a friendly face.”
Swensk’s smile and congenial manner was a staple on KLAS Channel 8 since she arrived in Las Vegas in July 1994. Swensk is closing her chapter at the CBS affiliate on April 16.
Swensk’s contract had timed out in January. After discussions with station management, she declined to renew.
Light bulb goes off
“I just was very honest, and I said, ‘You know, I’m kind of starting to feel some changes, and the TV industry is changing, and I’m moving in a different direction,’” says Swensk, recovering from shoulder surgery at the time. “I just feel like the time is right for me to make that decision. They would love it if I’d stay. If I had enough gas in the tank, I would.”
Swensk turns 67 in May, right at retirement age. But she says this move is no retirement.
“I’m in the last trimester of my life, if you will, and it’s a lot shorter looking at the finish line than it is to turn around and look at the starting line,” she says, noting that she and her husband, Larry Klein, made the final decision together. “Larry and I talked about it more and more, and I just feel like the time is now. You know, at some point the light bulb goes off and I feel like there’s so much more that I really would like to do.”
Swensk’s son, Ethan, is 24 and is a student at the University of Nevada, Reno. Swensk wants to devote more time to her family. She also serves on the board of the senior support organization Helping Hands of Vegas Valley.
More stories to tell
Post-Channel 8, Swensk wants to share accounts of her life and career in Las Vegas.
“Some of the most important events of my life happened while living in Las Vegas,” Swensk says. “I became a mom here, the happiest time of my life. But I also had some of the saddest times of my life, too. I went through two divorces in my tenure at Channel 8. I lost my brother within the very first year, who died by suicide. I lost my stepmom to cancer in 2004, back in Texas, I lost my best friend (fellow KLAS anchor), Polly Gonzalez. I lost both my dad and my mom, who I had brought out here separately to live, and my mom went through Lewy body dementia.”
Swensk emphasizes, “I will always tell stories, the experiences I’ve gone through. But you can’t do that when you’re on the hamster wheel, and you’re running, and you’re devoting so much energy to work.”
Swensk has been a weather reporter throughout her career and has also served as a co-anchor and weather anchor on the station’s “Good Day Las Vegas” news show. If you wake at 4 a.m., you wake with Swensk and her team. The newscast runs to 9 a.m., with a streaming report at 10 a.m.
“It was basically five hours, nonstop,” Swensk says. “People kept saying, ‘How are you still doing this, after all these years?’ It just kept getting earlier and earlier. That 2 o’clock alarm was not getting easier, but my body somehow got accustomed to it. I pushed through because I was loving what I did.”
Down goes the sign!
Swensk’s first story covered the storm that toppled the iconic Las Vegas Hilton (Westgate, today) marquee.
“It was a crazy July thunderstorm, and I had gotten to town with my U-Haul, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is going to be a fun job. I think I’m going to really like this,’” Swensk says. “But I really didn’t think I’d stay longer than two years.”
She says of her unexpected, three-decade run, “I’ve consistently stayed on people’s televisions, year after year. Even I don’t know how I did it. I can’t even explain it.”
Swensk recalls the city’s “rough spots,” the 2008 recession, and the pandemic.
“But the city has always come back, somehow,” Swensk says. “I think that’s what’s so amazing. What I love about Vegas is it’s so resilient. It always reinvents itself.”
Swensk is a Dallas native who graduated from the University of Texas, Arlington, with a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting and a minor in journalism. She was a freelance editor for several stations and production companies in the Bay Area when she was hired at KLAS in ‘94.
“I always wanted to be in TV since I was in college — not on TV, but in TV,” Swensk says. “I worked a lot behind the scenes before I ever got in front of the camera. I wasn’t even on TV until I was in my 30s. I wasn’t a mom until I was in my 40s, so I guess I’m a late bloomer.”
The teen beat
Swensk has met and covered some of the idols from her youth, among them Barry Williams of “The Brady Bunch,” Davy Jones of “The Monkees” and David Cassidy from “The Partridge Family.”
“I never thought in a million years I would meet, hug and interview all of these heartthrobs from my Teen Beat magazine years,” Swensk says, laughing. “I know that sounds so ridiculous, but for somebody my age, born in the late ’50s, that was a huge deal for me. It’s unbelievable. It’s wonderful. And I did it all in Las Vegas.”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.