Americans head to the polls today to add their voices to one of the most interesting off-year elections in recent political history. All polls show the races tightly knotted. Across the country President Clinton hopes to grab voters by the ears with seven radio interviews. The radio blitz follows an eight day campaign swing for Democrats.
In Los Angeles, O.J. Simpson’s friend Al Cowlings will not be charged in connection with the murder of Nicole Brown Simpsons or Ron Goldman. Prosecutors say they do not have enough evidence to charge Cowlings, who drove the Ford Bronco the day of the Simpson slow-speed chase. Selection of the 15 alternate jurors starts today. Yesterday, Judge Lance Ito decided to keep the court room camera that has brought court coverage to millions of Americans.
And in New York, a judge sentenced a teenager Monday to nine years to life in prison for luring a 9-year-old boy into the woods and crushing his skull with a rock. Eric Smith confessed in 1993 to leading the victim to an overgrown lot where he first chocked the child and then bashed his head with a 26-pound rock.
Partly cloudy this morning with highs in the lower 80s; partly cloudy tonight, too, humid and lows in the mid-60s. Currently, at 7:02, it’s 72 degrees.
In mid-September I entered the Communication Building one morning and noticed the first signage of the semester announcing the impending Community Seven Charitable Auction. The slogan “Bids for Kids” featured prominently on the fluorescent-coloured posters, which was the popular and long-running catchphrase for the long-running program.
Being new to the department, I asked what this auction-thing was. I surprisingly received an earful.
The Community Charitable Auction began back in the mid-1970s – or so I was led to believe (it never failed to amaze me in later years that no one seemed to know any history about the Communication Department). While the method to the madness had evolved over the years, the concept was fairly simple: to raise money for the Morra County United Service League. To do this, every summer the Communication Department stretched its long tentacles out to local and regional businesses soliciting donations. For example, the local bakery might pitch in coupons for free cupcakes, City Coliseum might donate two season passes to their spring concert series, or local restaurants gave away gift certificates (I recall Señor Taco donated pints of their green sauce one year).
Anyway, here’s where the students came into play: we hosted the auction. (Well, they did – I never participated directly.) Sort of like the try-outs for news anchors, there were try-outs for emcees. Tradition stipulated that two males and two females be selected as “hosts” who would tag-team emcee duties throughout the four-hour program airing in mid-October. Those that did not make the cut received jobs answering phones, working behind the scenes, or “presenting” – which was little more than a cop-out to give students the face-time they thought they were owned.
There were about fifty people answering phones, including students and faculty from the Communication Department as well as other university and community leaders and officials (i.e. the provost and mayor). Viewers would watch until something they wanted came up for bid and then it was a mad dash to the phone. At the end of the given time, the item went to the highest bidder and the money went to the city’s United Service League office. Supposedly the department’s annual event was always one of the top five contributors to the United Service League (no one knew the history of that, either, though it was always touted as truth).
At least, that’s how I understood it went down. I wasn’t involved my freshman year, partly because there was little push in Dr. Propel’s class for us to participate in the behind-the-scenes work and partly because I had little desire to sit and answer phones for four hours (which, as a freshman, would have likely been my contribution). Nor did I get involved the next two years; it wasn’t until I was a senior and enrolled in the Special Events Programming class that I had to participate in the first-ever live television remote during the annual auction.
Like every other try-out for something on Channel 7, there were the usual two cliques: those that always auditioned and were awarded the role in question; and those that always sat in the nose-bleed seats and critiqued every move of those that got the role. I suppose like everything else there were those that were playing favorites and giving the visible role of emcee to friends.
Another friend, another evening spent listening to the auctioneer.
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Sold Out
(unknown)
Pocket Change with David Patt
From the album Intimate Notions
1991