The latest news from Lake Wobegon: Garrison Keillor is retiring from "A Prairie Home Companion."
The creator and host of the popular radio program made his announcement on Monday during an interview with The Associated Press (via USA Today). He will say goodbye to the show in July 2016 and has tapped musician Chris Thile to succeed him, starting in September 2016.
"I have a lot of other things that I want to do. I mean, nobody retires anymore. Writers never retire. Bu this is my last season. This tour this summer is the farewell tour," the 72-year-old Keillor told the AP.
The "America the Beautiful" cross-country tour will kick off in Bayfield, Wis. this weekend and travel to 30 cities for live shows.
Keillor has served as the host of "A Prairie Home Companion" for more than 40 years. Across the nation on nearly 700 public radio stations, 4 million listeners tune in for the program every Saturday evening.
Previous reports of Keillor's retirement last month by the Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts were met with skepticism given the radio host previously announced plans to retire in 2013 when he turned 70. This time he's serious, but does plan to stay on as an executive producer and possibly drop in from time to time.
"I'm perfectly willing to do whatever needs to be done. I can certainly come on the show as a guest, you know, I can do the warm-up. I can stand in the wings and wind up microphone cord," he told the AP.
Keillor's retirement plans include traveling to places he's been before but never really got to see and possibly another movie to follow up his 2006 film version of "A Prairie Home Companion." He recently completed a Lake Wobegon screenplay about a young man who returns for his father's funeral and reconnects with a high school girlfriend.
"It's got a funeral, it's got a big Fourth of July parade, and it's got, you know, two people taking each other's clothes off," he said. "Everything we look for in a movie."
