CORY MATTESON Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Saturday, September 1, 2007 12:00 am
Each year, Jerry Lewis invites telethon emcees from across the country to Las Vegas in the middle of August. There, the comedian drives home the importance of their work getting donations at the local level in an effort to fight muscular dystrophy. Ed McMahon shows up. Casey Kasem has come before.
About the only thing that's changed for U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, taking part in his 23rd Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon starting Sunday, is that he passed up that opportunity so he could ride a float at the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas.
"I'm gonna choose Wyoming over Las Vegas every time," said Barrasso, the only U.S. Senator hosting a state MDA telethon this year.
In Casper on Friday, the boxes of telephones arrived at the Parkway Plaza at noon. So did the first donated party sub, and the first group of volunteers in charge of putting together the event that's now aired 31 years on K2TV.
"He's the hero of the hour," MDA District Director Melissa Ortberg said, pointing to a man sorting through a pile of cables. "The Qwest guy."
An open energy drink sat near two vast three-ring binders that belonged to Ortberg. One included a schedule of the marathon, including some advice for the few early a.m. hours when the national telethon runs alone. (GET SOME SLEEP! YEAH RIGHT!) Volunteers on Friday cracked open two banged-up cardboard boxes loaded with phones and cables. The first year she directed the event, in 2003, they were tangled together like the knottiest of Christmas lights.
That hasn't happened since, she said. The goal she's had in organizing the event is to learn from any hiccups from past years, and, as Jerry says, to earn at least a dollar more than the telethon did last year ($132,164).
"It's a rush," Ortberg said. "You see all the work come together and things start appearing before your eyes."
Twenty people man the phones for each of the five four-hour shifts during the telethon, which goes live at 7 p.m. Sunday on K2, Ortberg said. The national broadcast cuts away to the local ones 15 times during the course of the telethon, where the local broadcasters are expected to air segments that can run anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour-plus, Ortberg said.
Barrasso was in Laramie on Wednesday, and he'll arrive at the Parkway about a half hour before the telethon starts. In the meantime, he said, he will watch copies of videos that will be shown during the telethon, and he looks at previous broadcasts and notes from years past.
Twenty-three years ago he was asked to come on camera and talk about the disease from a physician's perspective. As he explained muscular dystrophy, he said, all the phones started ringing. The crew asked him to come on in the next hour, and he's been involved ever since.
After 23 years, he's a pro, Ortberg said.
"He's medically trained so he understands the cause scientifically," Ortberg said. She said he's also made connections with families over the years.
"It's like a big family reunion," Barrasso said.
To donate during the MDA telethon, call either 473-1009 or (800) 637-9921.
Contact reporter Cory Matteson at (307) 266-0589 or cory.matteson@casperstartribune.net.