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Pat Sajak takes a final spin on “Wheel of Fortune,” ending a legendary career: “An incredible privilege”
After hosting “Wheel of Fortune” for 41 years, Pat Sajak is taking his final spin on Friday.
Last year, the now 77-year-old announced this would be his final season after being part of more than 8,000 episodes.
“It’s been an incredible privilege to be invited into millions of homes night after night, year after year,” Sajak said.
Sajak’s turn as the affable host, with Vanna White by his side, made him a TV legend.
“When I first started, I was so green. You made me so comfortable, you made me so confident, Pat,” White said. “You made me who I am. You really did.”
Sajak also spoke to his daughter Maggie about the show’s staying power.
“People come up to us almost every day, sometimes in tears, and say, ‘I used to watch the show with my grandmother or my kids, or my kids learned the alphabet from your show, or my mom came from the Philippines and learned to speak English,'” Sajak said. “We didn’t intend any of that, and yet we’ve become this sort of cohesive bond between people and generations and families and friends, and it’s awfully gratifying.”
Sajak will now hand the reins over to Ryan Seacrest.
“It really feels like the end of an era,” said Angelique Jackson, a senior entertainment writer at “Variety,” who says Sajack’s storied career could be impossible to replicate.
“Can anyone else get 41 seasons and pull it off the way he did?” she said. “Quite simply, no. This is just not the way that TV works anymore. You don’t have a game show that is part of everybody’s lives when they are a child, then they are a parent, then they are a grandparent. This is a total anomaly and really will help Pat go down in the record books.”
Despite the big shoes Seacrest will have to fill when next season begins, he will have White standing next to him as she returns for another year.
“I can say, along with the rest of America, that it’s been a privilege and pure joy to watch Pat and Vanna on our television screens for an unprecedented 40 years, making us smile every night and feel right at home with them,” Seacrest wrote on X last year after the announcement. “I can’t wait to continue the tradition of spinning the wheel and working alongside the great Vanna White.”
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Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say
The shooter who killed a student and teacher at a religious school in Wisconsin brought two guns to the school and was in contact with a man in California whom authorities say was planning to attack a government building, according to authorities and court documents that became public Wednesday.
Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and teacher on Monday before shooting herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Associated Press Wednesday. Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition on Wednesday.
A Southern California judge issued a restraining order Tuesday under California’s gun red flag law against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. The order requires the man to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours unless an officer asks for them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.
Carlsbad is located just north of San Diego.
According to the order, the man told FBI agents that he had been messaging Natalie Rupnow, the Wisconsin shooter, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives. The order doesn’t say what building he had targeted or when he planned to launch his attack. It also doesn’t detail his interactions with Rupnow except to state that the man was plotting a mass shooting with her.
CBS’ San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV reported that law enforcement searched the man’s home Tuesday night after the order was signed by the judge.
Police, with the assistance of the FBI, were scouring online records and other resources and speaking with the shooter’s parents and classmates in an attempt to determine a motive for the shooting, Barnes told the AP.
Police don’t know if anyone was targeted in the attack or if the attack had been planned in advance, the chief said. Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.
“I do not know if if she planned it that day or if she planned it a week prior,” Barnes said. “To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. And so we don’t know what the premeditation is.”
On a Madison city website providing details about the shooting, police disclosed Wednesday that two guns were found at the school, but only one was used in the shooting. A law enforcement source previously told CBS News the weapon used appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.
Barnes told the AP that he did not know how the suspected shooter obtained the guns and he declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation.
No decisions have been made about whether Rupnow’s parents might be charged in relation to the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes told the AP.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school that offers prekindergarten classes through high school. About 420 students attend the institution.
The Dan County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two people killed Wednesday as 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara.
An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.”
West’s exact position with the school was unclear.
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