Doug ‘The Plumber’ gets roasted to benefit Children’s Foundation

Photos by Tom Rivers

GAINES – Marcy Downey plays Ernestine, a telephone operator, during a roast on Saturday night of Doug Bower, right. Bower works as a plumber and co-host of the WHAM Home Repair Clinic with Jim Salmon, left.

Bower provided plenty of material for the sold-out roast at Tillman’s Village Inn, which was a benefit for The Salmon Children’s Foundation. That foundation has donated more than $7,000 to Albion High School graduates in scholarships in memory of Nicholas Kovaleski.

Downey pretended to be a 9-1-1 operator who received an emergency call from Bower. He was injured in an accident on July 22, 2012, when his van, which was left in neutral, rolled back in the Wal-Mart parking lot. The van tripped Bower and ran over his right leg and torso. He was seriously injured that day, but has recovered from those injuries and can now joke about the accident.

Jim Salmon took delight in picking on his friend and radio co-host Doug Bower.

Kelly Kovaleski tells Bower and more than 100 people at the Celebrity Roast that her son, Nicholas, had a great sense of humor and enjoyed making people laugh.

Nicholas was 15 when he died from leukemia on June 29, 2011. He was a guest on the Home Repair Clinic with Salmon and Bower and talked about fighting cancer.

The memorial scholarship for Nicholas goes to a student who “Lives With Purpose,” which was Nicholas’s motto.

Charlie Nesbitt, a former state assemblyman, took a turn roasting Bower.

Phyl Contestable, “The Reverend Mother,” also joined the roasting revelry, picking on both Salmon and Bower.

Gary Simboli portrays the comedian Foster Brooks, pretending to be a short-lived plumbing partner for Bower early in his career, during Saturday’s roast.