BANGOR, Maine — Ask Steve McKay what his strongest memory as a TV weatherman in Maine for the past 22 years is, and it doesn’t take him long to answer — the infamous ice storm of 1998.
“It was a very quiet storm,” he recalled Thursday, referring to the weather event 18 years ago that glazed trees and brought down power lines statewide, leaving hundreds of thousands of Maine residents shivering in the dark and causing millions of dollars in damage. “It was kind of a freezing drizzle that lasted for days.”
Steve McKay is the stage name used by Steven W. Smith, who announced Wednesday that he is leaving WLBZ Channel 2 where he has worked since 1994 to dedicate more time to his work as a minister, a calling he has answered part time for a dozen years.
Smith, 55, started in radio and initially learned about the weather when he took flying lessons, he said. At some point his manager asked if he could fill in for the weatherman, and the rest is history.
“As soon as I did it, I thought, ‘This is a pretty good gig,’” Smith said.
Pretty soon, “Start your day with Steve McKay” was a common radio announcement, and when he was hired at the television station, management decided he should keep the on-air name.
Over the years, he’s gone to various schools and “visited with thousands of kids” from all over the state.
“That’s been enjoyable,” he said. “That was always a treat.”
Some of the kids that he visited as children are now adults.
“When you’re doing something so long, time goes by so fast,” Smith said.
Smith was born in Illinois, but moved to Maine, where his mother is from, when he was 9 years old. He graduated from Orono High School and went away for college but has spent most of his life in the Pine Tree State.
“This area always had everything I needed,” said Smith, who married his wife, Judy, 25 years ago and is a father and grandfather. “This was always home.”
Meteorological technology has changed tremendously over the years, with computers now mapping weather patterns and providing trends, but it also means doing more work to keep people updated with the latest information, he said.
“What falls as half-an-inch of slush in Bar Harbor can be 10 inches of snow in Greenville,” he said, adding that a forecast is always an “educated guess.”
Smith’s introduction to the ministry was similar to his first experience as a weatherman. His first time at the pulpit happened shortly after he returned from college in Rhode Island in the mid-1990s when the pastor of the Federated Church of Stillwater went on vacation and someone was needed to fill in.
“I did it and something clicked,” Smith said. “It wasn’t a magical moment, but something clicked.”
That click led Smith to more theological studies, and later to church leadership classes.
He received his master of arts degree from Bangor Theological Seminary in a ceremony at First United Methodist Church on Essex Street in May 2009. He is now enrolled in a doctorate of ministry program at Duke University for church leadership.
For the last eight years, he has been a pastor in his hometown at the Orono United Methodist Church, where he attended church as a youth, and is entering his third year leading the Alton United Methodist Church. He started his work at two United Methodist congregations in Washington County.
“I grew up in the church,” Smith said.
He said his goal is to connect people to the lessons of the Bible.
“We can learn from their experiences,” Smith said, referring to biblical characters.
“This is not your grandmother’s church. This is your church,” he added later, inviting those who have never been to church to visit sometime.
The local weatherman, whose forecasts appeared in the Bangor Daily News for several years, was featured on WLBZ’s “207” show at 7 p.m. Thursday, and he received a send-off on Friday’s 6 p.m. news broadcast.
His last forecast is 11 p.m. Sunday.
Beside the people he works with, what McKay says he’ll miss most is working in the building where local personality Eddie Driscoll entertained so many.
“He did it from right here,” Smith said, while seated in a chair in the television station’s studio on Mount Hope Avenue. “Right where I did my weather every night.”