The night, however, featured more than a few jabs at Jones, Jolivette and Brown.
A couple hundred people filled the upper room of the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in downtown Hamilton to not only hear the comical one-liners, but to also raise money for three local causes — Serve City, the Boys and Girls Club of Hamilton and PARACHUTE: Butler County CASA.
Some of the self-deprecating shots Smith took at himself got the biggest laughs of the night.
“Let’s get started with the end of my career,” Smith told the crowd before taking on the sheriff.
Smith joked with the crowd that he and his wife had a contingency plan to get home Friday night “because I know I’m going to get arrested,” he said.
“Honey, we’re going through the river tonight. We’re not even going to try the road,” he said.
Smith said he wondered why the Junior Women’s League wanted to roast Richard Jones the sheriff when there were other Richard Jones’ from Hamilton they could roast — such as Richard O Jones, a local Hamilton author and former Journal-News reporter, or Rick Jones of the Fitton Center.
“Then I realized that they wanted someone that was modest and could take a good ribbing,” Smith facetiously said as a picture of a cigar-chomping Jones flashed behind the stage. “Someone whose soft-spoken manner and delicate delivery is the very essence of humility and gentleness.”
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But whatever Smith doled out, Jones gave right back when he had a chance to rebut.
He reminded Smith of their first meeting, “The first time he come to meet me, he was going to impress me with how powerful he was. You remember that first meeting? It didn’t go real well, did it?” he asked Smith. “But I had fun.”
The sheriff, in his typical flamboyant fashion, did raise $5,000 in less than one minute for the evening’s causes.
“Here’s what I will do tonight,” he said. “I will donate $1,000 if four people in this room will match that $1,000 — I’ll donate that tonight to the charity that you choose.”
Four hands shot up within 45 seconds of Jones’ challenge.
Jolivette, the nephew of former Hamilton mayor and county commissioner Greg Jolivette, was roasted by two Hollywood and college friends, entrepreneur and actor J.W. Wolterman and voice actor Chris Cox.
“I came here tonight because I wanted to talk about a young man from Hamilton who went off to become a big success and is now the pride of his hometown,” said Wolterman. “But I will not talk about that man. Instead I’m going to talk about Vince Jolivette.”
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Both men poked fun of Jolivette’s 300-plus low-budget movies and his wardrobe, of which Cox said tight black pants and thin bubble jacket were circa 1987.
Cox compared the rise of fake news this political cycle and Jolivette’s career: “It doesn’t exist … it’s smoke and mirrors.”
“I’m not saying the movies aren’t good,” Cox said. “I can’t, I haven’t seen them. I like to buy candy bars at 7-Eleven, not movies.”
The running joke throughout the night about Rhonda Brown was her apparent public anonymity.
Brown, known more by her dark wardrobe and the results of her volunteerism, was roasted by her two "husbands" — her husband of 28 years, Tom, and her "work husband" at InsideOut Studio, Stephen Smith.
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Both men talked about Brown’s willingness to help a worthy cause, including giving up chocolate and a certain curse word for Lent every year.
Brown’s husband said he had to be careful if he wanted to see 29 years of marriage, but told the crowd the secret to her philanthropic success was “she’d not said no to anyone else, aside from me.”
“Had she actually said no to anything, I highly doubt that any of the organizations she had volunteered for would have accomplished half as much,” said Tom Brown.
“Aside from her vast contributions to her charities, one thing you can always count on from Rhonda is her opinion. Rhonda’s like Google. When you type something in, it always comes up with suggestions,” he said.
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