I hit a wall at the Nov. 13 Make-A-Wish Foundation holiday party for local families. I was at the event, which took place at Springfield High School, to arrange a photo session for this week’s special issue, which celebrates the “Holiday Wishes” CD.
Among the games and decorated tables, apart from the Santa Claus photo area and the DJ, was a wall that stretched the entire length of the gym. On that wall hung a list of all the local kids to whom Make-A-Wish has granted wishes to throughout the years.
There were too many kids’ names to count, too many columns of wishes to comprehend, too many young lives lost before their time.

I worked very hard to make the “Holiday Wishes” CD a success, to gather the talents of local musicians to raise money for the cause. The result of hundreds of hours of scores of people’s effort is a 25-track collection that retails for $9.99, every penny of which goes to the NW Ohio chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.
If I had stood before that wall before I started the project, I would have worked 10 times as hard, and I would have delivered a 10-CD set to raise 10 times as much money.
In 2010, the national Make-A-Wish Foundation granted almost 14,000 wishes to kids in the United States. The organization grants a wish about every 40 minutes. Some of the more common wishes include visits to places such as a Disney theme park or the Super Bowl. Some kids want to be a firefighter for a day, or a police officer. Some wishes are heartbreakingly simple; there are calls for a puppy, a computer, a chance to go to prom. Many of the kids want to meet an actor, athlete or other celebrity.
Can you imagine receiving that call — a child with limited days left has one major wish, to meet you? How could you ever turn that down?
Stepping up
I witnessed the power of Make-A-Wish firsthand while working on the “Holiday Wishes” CD, which goes on sale Nov. 25 at all area Panera Bread stores. Nearly every person I contacted immediately answered the call for time or talent. Some people, like engineer Christopher Stoll of Zeta Recording Studio, producer Mighty Wyte and attorney Larry Meyer, donated many more hours than I ever imagined they would need to when I first contacted them. More than 100 musicians and artists donated performances for the CD, and that doesn’t count the full Toledo Symphony Orchestra, which recorded an all-time great version of “Sleigh Ride” during a mid-fall concert in Findlay.
Many of the musicians continue to display a generosity and kindness that is humbling beyond words. Some of them will perform Dec. 1 at a benefit concert at The Blarney Bullpen. A few will appear to sing a few songs at a Dec. 3 concert at a Panera Bread location to be announced soon. Kerry Patrick Clark, who wrote and recorded the original song “(Looks Like It’s Going To Be) A Great Day” for the CD, will sing the National Anthem at the Nov. 29 Toledo City Council meeting, before a proclamation honors the local musicians on the CD and the charity it benefits. Clark is a partner with the CD manufacturer that produced the CD. When he received a commission check for referring the “Holiday Wishes” project, he immediately signed it over to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
I have also been amazed by the kindness of star Alyson Stoner and her mother, LuAnne Hodges, who donated recording studio time, autographed merchandise and even made time to go into a photography studio for the seasonal photos in this issue.
“Thank you” seems to pale in the face of such generosity. And that holds true for the organizations that stepped up to make sure that my unwieldy idea would not cost Make-A-Wish any money: Panera Bread is the distributor, Toledo Transmission and UAW Local 14 covered the manufacturing costs and Toledo Free Press and FOX Toledo donated promotions and commercials to the cause.
Now, it’s your turn.
If you appreciate local music, like holiday music and understand the spiritual and philanthropic role Make-A-Wish plays in our community, I hope that putting $10 on the Panera Bread counter for a 25-track CD that features contributions from Jamie Farr, Mannheim Steamroller, Crystal Bowersox and dozens more will seem like an easy choice and a great deal. You can also download the CD at www.cdbaby.com/cd/holidaywishes.
I remember standing before the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the first time, squinting at the rows of names and trying to keep in mind that every string of letters in that endless litany represented an individual person, with family and dreams and a path that was unfairly cut short and cut down.
Looking at the hundreds of local wishes granted to Make-A-Wish kids on that wall Nov. 13, I felt a similar sense of helplessness and a renewed sense of mission.
I took my sons Sean, 3, and Evan, 5, to one of the CD’s recording sessions. Sean, seeing the special treatment and attention the Make-A-Wish kids received, looked up at me and said, “Daddy, I want to be a Make-A-Wish kid.”
“No, son,” I said, momentarily paralyzed by the idea. “No, you don’t. But we’ll do everything we can to help the kids who are, OK?”

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Is there room in the Occupy Wall Street movement for a business middle ground? Does the anger and outright hatred expressed for “big corporations” diminish in proportion to the size of the business?
The people who are protesting and disrupting are expressing the frustrations and fears of those who see the tremendous challenges and demands of life in a capitalist society. I empathize with their concerns, but I also have to question how much of their reaction is a legitimate sense of what they believe is unfair and how much of their reaction is an aversion to the realization that for most people, success is the result of many years’ worth of hard work.

I have seen scores of news clips with Occupy protestors from across the country angrily denouncing “the rich,” their young faces warped with seeming hatred for those who are presumed to travel in private jets while they plot to crush the poor and keep younger generations from accessing the pie.
I do not travel by private jet and I am not in the storied 1 percent. What thoughts do the Occupy protestors give to the tens of thousands of small business owners like myself who have struggled and worked and clawed to find a modicum of success?
I wonder how the Occupy protestors would like the life of a small business owner — the personnel headaches, the financial worries, the effort to balance limited resources with the quest for quality service. If these young people believe every business person in a dry-cleaned suit spends his or her days with their feet up on their desk, enjoying three-hour lunches and altering lives with a thumbs up or thumbs down, they are sadly misguided and mistaken. Are the protestors going to be the people who put in the hard hours for hard years to enjoy modest comfort or are they going to be the ones who look back on their lives and blame others for where they are?
Of course the playing field isn’t equal. Some people are born into money and influence and never have to do more than maintain a minimum effort. But the vast majority of us start on the same crowded “go” square, and where we land is in direct correlation to how hard we work.
I admire the Occupy protestors for taking a stand, but as Thanksgiving provides a context for the people and things in our lives worth treasuring, I wonder if they truly understand that their alienation and exclusion is as much self-inflicted as it is the result of any conspiracy.
If the protestors really want to effect change, they will have to understand that the movement starts with individual responsibility and commitment to hard work, not an expectation of entitlement.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

“Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds.”    ~JoJo Jensen

Dear Lauri,
I dreamed I was scrubbing my legs with a big hand scrubber with little
razors in it. It was effectively exfoliating and shaving my legs painlessly!
- Lisa 46, Turlock, CA

Lauri: Shaving your legs in a dream means you are preparing for intimacy in
waking life, believe it or not! However, you are exfoliating rather than
shaving, so that makes me think you may be in the process of ridding
yourself of an intimate relationship. I also wonder if you have recently
come clean about something or have had a “close shave”, a narrow escape of
some sort. Whatever the case, it seems like you have handled something
smoothly and effortlessly, and what you thought might be an emotionally
painful situation turned out to be okay.

Lisa replies: I started dating a new person who decided to stick with his
ex. It was frustrating but I am about over it. I did consider having an
affair with him but that is very much against my nature and I have ended
those thoughts.

FASCINATING SLEEP FACT: In a study of migraine sufferers, it was found that
sleeping with a 30-degree elevation of the head resulted in a dramatic
decrease in headaches with an additional bonus of a reduction in sinus
congestion (including baggy eyes!). Researchers suggest that raising the
head might even have an impact on Alzheimer’s, ADHD and glaucoma.

-Lauri Quinn Loewenberg
Dream Expert and Author
“The brain is wider than the sky.” – Emily Dickinson

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In watching all of the activity is Europe, I surely can’t be the only one that thinks I am looking into the future of our country!  Prior to this last week our debt auctions have been deteriorating and the primary dealers have been picking up the excess.  Foreign central banks have not only backed off buying our debt but they have started to unload the debt they bought in the past.

This week, however, has been quite a different story.  The cover ratio of the last auction was over 4.0.  We haven’t seen this much demand for our debt in a long time.  Why the change?  Simple, our currency and our debt is the least bad of all of the garbage out there.  The Euro and the European Union is in grave danger of going away and billions of dollars are leaving those countries and their banks and need to go somewhere, so for now they are coming here.

For the time being this is likely to keep the dollar a little stronger against the Euro.  However, it is only a matter of time before inflation rears its ugly head with a vengeance.  This administration and this Congress has operated the last three years without a Constitutionally mandated budget and have run up over 5 trillion dollars of debt.

I really don’t expect the piper to come collecting until after the election next November, especially since the Fed has stated that it will not likely raise interest rates until mid-2013.  After that, however, is another story.  That is unless the powers that be continue to cook the books on “declared” inflation.

Inflation can exist long before the affects of increasing prices are recognized.  This is a dirty little secret that is very important to the government to advance its agenda.  The government actually needs inflation but it also needs the public perception of inflation to be very modest for as long as it can.

Inflation is the amount of dollars that is in circulation or the money supply.  When you add new money or credit to the economy the general level of prices will rise.  (Given the amount of goods and services within the system stays the same)  The money supply is changing all of the time and prices go up and prices go down.  An increase in the money supply is the cause; the change in prices is the effect.

When the money supply increases, more dollars are chasing fewer goods therefore the prices go up.  Another way of putting it is when there are more dollars injected into the economy the value of each existing dollar goes down so it takes more of them to purchase goods and services.  It is the same with any thing that has value due to scarcity.  Picasso paintings are valuable because there are so few of them, if we were to find 10,000 new Picasso paintings stored somewhere, the value of existing paintings would diminish.

I could go into stories of the Weimar Republic in Germany or modern day Zimbabwe, but both of those are very extreme and I think we are a few years away from that type of scenario.  (That is not to say that we are not on that path….we are.)  Expansion of the money supply creates no additional goods to the economy it just causes the prices to rise and therefore, creating an artificial demand.

This economic principle is formally known as Say’s Law.  (Attributed to the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say)  Oversimplified, Says Law is stated as supply creates demand but the element of production is critical.  A better way of expressing Say’s Law might be that production creates consumption; the supply of each producer creates his demand for the supplies of the produces and so on.  Say believed that increasing the money supply creates inflation because more money is pursuing the same amount of goods but this does not increase the real demand.

So far most of the money that has been printed has been use to buy up government debt that no one else wants, so the money has not been introduced into the economy in bulk yet.  The Fed is now the government’s largest debt holder and very soon most of the debt will need to be purchased by the Bernacke and his successors.

Next time we will look at why the government likes inflation, needs inflation and what you can do to take advantage of it in your personal investments.

Gary L. Rathbun is the president and CEO of Private Wealth Consultants.  He can be heard everyday at 4:06 on After the Bell with Brian Wilson and the Afternoon Drive, and every Thursday evening at 6 p.m. on Eye on Your Money both on 1370 WSPD.  He can be reached at 419-842-0334 or at garyrathbun@privatewealthconsultants.com.

Fred Altvater

Urban Meyer and Ohio State have come to terms for their football head coaching job, according to a report by Local 6 in Orlando, Fla. Meyer signed a seven year, $40 million deal.

The 47-year-old has deep ties to Ohio. He was born in Toledo, graduated from St. John’s High School in Ashtabula and played college football at Cincinnati. He was an assistant at OSU in 1986-87 and spent two successful years as head coach at Bowling Green State University before moving on to Utah and eventually Florida.

Meyer won two BCS National Championships in his six seasons as head coach at Florida and was the third-highest paid head coach in the nation. He took a brief leave of absence after the 2009 season but returned to coach Florida in 2010. He resigned after a poor 7-5 season in 2010 citing health concerns.

He has spent the last year as an ESPN college football commentator. Meyer had been assigned the Michigan/Ohio State game this Saturday but ESPN announced it reassigned him to a desk job in Bristol.

Meyer has been successful with the spread offense, but another semi-famous head coach Rich Rodriguez tried the spread offense at a Big Ten school, and we all know how that experiment worked out.

Florida also had some problems with graduation rates and arrests of players during Meyer’s tenure. Will he avoid those problems at Ohio State?

Ohio State certainly got its big-name coach, and recruiting is the most important factor of a big time college head football coach. The fact is that Ohio State is not getting its share of top-shelf high school prospects right now.

Also, current head coach Luke Fickell has done a solid job with the 2011 team even though his record does not reflect it. Did Ohio State panic and spend a ton of money to get a big-name coach just to keep the alumni happy?

Urban Meyer will get the recruits and he will win football games, but will some of the off-field drama that was evident at Florida follow him to Columbus?

Read more from Fred at:  www.toledoohiogolflessonscom.

History is written by the victors, according to the age-old axiom. Whether in war or in debate, this truth remains. But one must ask if there are lessons to be learned in defeat and from the defeated.  Should we not study the history of the Weimar Republic and a young leader who would later come to be known simply as Hitler? Should we not also study the history of a fledgling colony of Great Britain in a far and distant land which would later rise to claim its independence? British Statesman Edmund Burke said, “Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.”
Let us focus on the founding of a nation. What can we learn from our own history? There are many lessons, beginning with some of the first Spanish settlements in Florida in the mid-1500s, but if we wish to learn from the losers, we can find no better example than those known as “The Anti-Federalists.”
Following America’s Declaration of Independence, representatives of 13 independent states met to discuss providing a very loose framework for some “continental” services. Their discussions and debates produced the Articles of Confederation. These articles retained “the sovereignty, freedom and independence” of the new states while setting in the minds of all the need for alignment of purpose. The articles made provisions for mutual defense from foreign invaders and made the first attempt at providing equal protection of the law, regardless of citizenship.
Within a decade, the infighting between the independent states had taken a toll on the confederation. A new document was proposed: The Constitution of the United States of America. While we often take this document for granted (or ignore it outright), the mere proposal of this document led to loud and boisterous arguments, hot-tempered disagreements and, in a few cases, armed conflict.
During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, delegates from 12 of the states sent representatives with the intention of amending the Articles of Confederation to address many of the issues facing the confederation. To the surprise of many, a completely new Constitution was proposed. This so alarmed many that they withdrew from the convention to seek input from their various state legislatures.  New York in fact withdrew all of its delegates. Over the concerns and objections of many, the Constitution was written, voted upon and sent to the states for ratification.  Before the ink was dry, the battle lines of this debate were set between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.
Samuel Bryan, aka “Centinel,” struck first. His review of the proposed Constitution noted, “The power of taxation enforced with a standing army is the grand engine of oppression.” He further warned “through the science of government, … men of the greatest purity of intention may be made instruments of despotism in the hands of the artful and designing.”
Bryan was not alone in seeing the potential dangers of the proposed Constitution in the hands of those who sought to “govern the masses, rather than lead through example of character.” George Clinton in New York published his concerns under the pseudonym “Cato.” “The world is too full of examples which prove that to live by one man’s will becomes the cause of all man’s misery,” he wrote.
Cato warned of the separation of the representatives from those they served. “It is a very important objection to this government, that the representation consists of so few; too few to resist the influence of corruption, and the temptation to treachery.”
Robert Yates, aka “Brutus,” reminded fellow New Yorkers, “Many instances can be produced in which the people have voluntarily increased the powers of their rulers; but few, if any, in which rulers have willingly abridged their authority.”
Thomas Jefferson laid the cornerstone of this debate when, upon reading the freshly signed Constitution, he said, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
Patrick Henry agreed, saying, “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government —lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
Daniel Webster, a well-versed student of history, opined, “Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter; from the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government.”
Knowledge may be gained through memorization of names, places and dates, but often those are written by the victors. Wisdom is gained in understanding the causes of the winners and the losers of the debate. The debates surrounding ratification of our Constitution serve as the highest examples of this.
As Aristotle said, “Wisdom is the knowledge of causes.”

Email Robert Densic at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Desmond Marrow

NOTE: This is the 15th installment of a weekly series in which staff writer Mike Bauman will follow sixth-year Toledo senior cornerback Desmond Marrow for the 2011 season.

After giving up 126 combined points and 1,167 offensive yards to its opponents in its previous two games, Toledo and sixth-year senior cornerback Desmond Marrow held Central Michigan to 17 points and 346 yards of total offense in a 44-17 victory over the Chippewas on Nov. 18.

With just one regular season game remaining in his collegiate career, the Youngstown native reflected on his journey to this point.

“I would say the main thing is just keeping the faith through any situation no matter what it was, just to know that [when] I was injured that I would be back and I’d still be playing,” Marrow said in a recent interview. “And even though we were losing, like, one day would come when we’d be a winning team. And all those things have come true; just sticking with the dream and the plan.”

Marrow tied for second on the team with five tackles and had one pass breakup in the road tilt with CMU. He also got his team-leading third interception of the season on Central Michigan’s first possession of the second half, picking off Ohio native Ryan Radcliff at the UT 31-yard line on a pass that hit Marrow right in the numbers.

“That was basically a gift,” Marrow said of the interception. “I just had to catch it. I mean, it’s great to get picks. You always want to get interceptions, so it was a good thing.”

As has been the case in several of the Rockets’ matchups this season, the UT defense again played with multiple players at different positions, including Marrow. For the second consecutive contest, Marrow started the game at free safety before moving back to his natural cornerback position.

“Whatever they need me to do, I’ll do it to help the team win,” Marrow said. “It’s fun. It’s a lot going on. You’ve got a lot more to read, but you’ve just got to go out and make plays.”

Toledo was without junior defensive tackle Danny Farr, who missed the contest due to a shoulder injury. Senior “star” safety Charles “BoBo” Rancifer and senior cornerback Taikwon Paige did not start the first quarter of the game on defense, while junior “star” safety Byron Best started the contest at the boundary cornerback position. Freshman John James, who wasn’t on the team’s two-deep depth chart as of Nov. 14, started at the field cornerback position.

Even with the lineup changes, the Rockets (7-4, 6-1 Mid-American Conference) limited the Chippewas (3-9, 2-6 MAC) to an average of 5.7 yards per play and one third down conversion in 11 tries.

“It’s just a lot of pressure,” Marrow said on how the defense bounced back. “You want to step up. You don’t want to just depend on the offense to bail you out every week, and as a defensive player you take it kind of personally. So you want to come out and do your best.”

Desmond Marrow

Toledo will close out the regular season against Ball State (6-5, 4-3 MAC) the day after Thanksgiving on Nov. 25.

“I think it’s just something that happens in the Mid-American [Conference],” UT head coach Tim Beckman said. “It happens at Oklahoma State and Ohio State when we were there, too. We had to go through Thanksgiving. That’s part of college football. We’ve got one more opportunity to play together and we’ll see where that leads us.

“We know somebody’s got to do something for us to get us in that [MAC] championship game, but these kids still believe that they can be champs. We’re going to play like we’re going to have a possibility to be a champ.”

Beckman said the Rockets will practice Wednesday morning and that he will give players an opportunity to go home before the team travels to Muncie, Ind. to face the Cardinals.

“The kids that are local hopefully will take some of our kids that aren’t local from Florida or [elsewhere] and take them to their house, have a little turkey and then we’ll get them back on Thursday and we’ll travel,” Beckman said.

Toledo needs both a victory over Ball State as well as an Eastern Michigan win over Northern Illinois to get into the MAC Championship at Ford Field on Dec. 2. With one game left and hope for a championship still alive, Marrow is thankful for those who have been along for the ride.

“I’m thankful for my family and my Rocket family and fans for all believing in me,” Marrow said.

Kickoff for UT’s matchup with BSU is slated for 2 p.m. and will air on ESPNU and ESPN3.

Apathy is my addiction and my reality. I’m apathetic. And pun intended, I don’t care.
Apathy. It gets a bum rap. A negative connotation. A furrowed brow. A befuddled glare. A self-righteous lecture. It even comprises the word “pathetic.” Who wants to be described by a synonym of dismal, pitiable, and useless plus a one-letter prefix?
To be apathetic is to not care enough to find the TV remote after Joel McHale’s oh-so-short airing of “The Soup” has expired. Eventually, one is inadvertently and regretfully keeping up with those painful Kardashians to the extent that one knows who Kendall and Kylie Jenner are, and has obtained the ability to successfully defend Scott Disick from the vicious women in the break room at work.
In this month of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful my apathy hasn’t doomed me to having a television stuck on MTV. I couldn’t remain sane with “Jersey Shore” and “Teen Mom” marathons poisoning my brain. Perhaps MTV is the cure to my TV-remote apathy.
After getting past the cultural disapproval, apathy really is the best way to go. Ignorance truly is bliss. Not caring enough to know what is going on in the world creates a slight piece of heaven on earth.
It’s almost like deleting one’s Facebook account — problems and drama disappear, peace and tranquility ensue. The frantic status updates that are concluded with “FML” no longer annoy. The friend requests from strangers and stalkers vanish, and there is no need to manage a blocked person list. Privacy and time are regained.
It may be shunned, but when apathy provides incredible peace of mind and serenity, why should peer pressure persuade a person to partake of the stress, depression and chronic migraines that local, national and world news bring about?
Pass the Prozac, please. That Lunesta looks useful, too.
I decided to take an active leap into the local fray that is Toledo politics more than five years ago. After taking a serious hiatus from caring about the issues that affect Toledo — mostly budget issues — I recently watched 10 minutes of the local news, after actively avoiding everything for nearly a year — and nothing has changed.
Issues stemming from budget problems still exist. The mayor is definitely a different person. No longer an aging, scrappy old white guy, he’s now an intimidating former fire chief with serious facial hair.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Same issues, same problems, same nonsolutions. Why should I care? The end result will always be the same. More money will be taken from me, by force. It doesn’t matter what the peons who comprise the Toledo population think. The political elite, in their infinite wisdom, have already decided our financial sacrifice.
So in a town with a population of fewer than 300,000 people and with no real way to influence the political tide, short of making a run for office (which brings its own complications thanks to the local political parties), why should I then care what happens statewide or nationally?
Maybe I’m just burned out and cranky, throwing my temper tantrum because I can’t get my way, but I’ve removed the headaches and stress. I’ve removed the addiction to local blogs, national drama and international stress. I’m enjoying the apolitical lifestyle.
Priorities rearranged: the enjoyment of the new blink-182 album, the fight for decent seats for the next big act at the Huntington Center, compassion for those poor petitioners and peoplewatching are better options than caring about and participating in a system that wastes my time and energy.
It’s less about societal effectiveness and more about removing the headaches and time-suck.
I’m positive I won’t be playing blink-182’s “I Miss You” with Toledo politics in mind anytime soon.

Email Tom Morrissey at letters@toledofreepress.com.

When local rock mainstay Voodoo Libido was asked to contribute to the “Holiday Wishes” project, it jumped at the chance to give back to the community. But the song the band was offered, “Blue Christmas,”  just didn’t cut it. It wasn’t rock n’ roll enough for a band as raw as theirs. So, to make it their own, the four band members decided to record a track connected to two of music’s all-time greats — Chuck Berry and Keith Richards.

Voodoo Libido

“Some of the songs, we felt, had been done enough, and we wanted to do something different. And ‘Run, Run Rudolph’ is a Chuck Berry song, but it had been done by Keith Richards years ago, released online as a rarity. So we did his version of it, and I think it came out pretty good,” said longtime Voodoo member John Rockwood.
The resulting track is a rollicking addition to the Make-A-Wish Foundation fundraiser CD. The song captures the spirit of the holiday and mixes in the anarchy of Voodoo Libido, a group that has been making music together for quite some time.
“Most of us have been playing together for five years — Dave the guitar player and I have been for about 25 years,” Rockwood said. “So, we went in and we did a run-through, we did a take, and we got it on the second take. So it’s pretty raw rock n’ roll, but it’s good.
“It’s kinda like the way the band is. The band’s a roots band, and we didn’t wanna go in and overdub everything. Kinda like the way they used to do it in the old days. Four tracks, go in and get it, and release it the next day.”
The track has been updated with a passing mention of a Lady Gaga doll.
Rockwood said he hopes listeners get enjoyment out of the track and that the project brings smiles to local faces in more ways than one.
“I hope there’s some fun in the holidays,” he said. “And rock n’ roll is part of the holidays. Chuck Berry is one of the great writers. Irving Berlin, Crystal Bowersox and Chuck Berry.”

Kaylee Halko rolled up to Zeta Recording in Holland in a black car. There was no entourage, just a driver.
Waiting outside for the producer to arrive, Tim Halko, one of her personal chauffeurs and father, asked if she wanted to go over her lines.

Kaylee Halko

“Where are the cameras? Where’s the microphone?” the 8-year-old asked her dad.
The talent was waiting for the recording light to go on, as well as the paparazzi.
She’s familiar with the spotlight, thanks to appearances on “The Dr. Oz Show,” TLC’s “6 Going on 60” and a “20/20” special with Barbara Walters. All the programs profiled Kaylee, who has progeria, a rapid-aging disease.
For her recording debut, Kaylee sported a tank top with sparkling butterflies, a black and pink plaid shirt, black jeans, gray sneakers and a white cap with a pink ribbon.
In the waiting room, she made herself at home; the confident star sat back and propped her feet up on a chair until it was showtime.
She opted to get the publicity photos out of the way first.
Then the Monclova Primary School second-grader put on the headphones and was ready.
“Testing: Yo, yo, yo, what’s up?” she said in the recording booth.
Excitement was evident among a few fans who gathered that September day to see Kaylee, who was reciting two sentences for the track “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” for a Make-A-Wish Foundation CD fundraiser project, “Holiday Wishes.”
The red light went on and Kaylee said, “Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus?”
There were immediate smiles and nods in the control room.
“That was great, Kaylee,” said Chris Stoll, engineer at Zeta Recording, which donated studio time for the project. “Let’s do it again a little slower.”
Kaylee recited the lines as requested.
“Holy mackerel!” Stoll said. Tim beamed.
“OK, one more time, Kaylee. This time a little slower and be dramatic,” Stoll instructed.
The kid nailed it.
“Unbelievable!” Stoll said. “We’re done.”
“Peace out,” Kaylee said and started rapping, following less than three minutes of work.
In the control room, she lip-synced as the playback rolled, much to the delight of a couple of young fans.

Alyson Stoner

Her voice opens the track, which also features Crystal Bowersox and Alyson Stoner along with local media personalities Lee Conklin of 13abc, Harvey Steele of K100 and “Voice of the Rockets” Mark Beier.
Steele said he was familiar with “Yes, Virginia,” a newspaper editorial written in 1897 by Francis P. Church.
“I’ve been around a while so I remember it as a kid as a newspaper editorial. However, I’m not as old as that editorial!’ Steele said. “We have worked with Make-A-Wish on many occasions in the 30 years I’ve been in Toledo, including their Sports Auction. We started a car show that benefited Make-A-Wish for several years and in fact my nephew was a Make-A-Wish child back in Illinois.”
Stoner, who has starred in such films as “Cheaper by the Dozen” and “Step Up” and who voices Isabella on “Phineas and Ferb,” said she has also worked with Make-A-Wish.
“I have been affiliated with Make-A-Wish for years, participating in various fundraisers and one-on-one meetings at children’s hospitals.  My family and I befriended a young boy, Dylan, whose wish was to be in a movie — (he screamed ‘Snake!’ in ‘Cheaper By The Dozen’) — and we’ve since stayed in touch and followed his journey.”
Stoner said although the text is more than 100 years old, modern technology aided her performance.
“The beauty of recording is it becomes the actor’s responsibility to build the imaginary world around them and experiment with different tones and inflections.  I usually gather as many clues as I can from the director and production team.  Then I read the material multiple times to find key words that hint to the character’s train of thought and personality.  Thankfully, with digital capability, I can submit 10 takes in a work file and let a professional editor piece it together.  I hope the story we’ve painted is accurate, sincere and absolutely heartwarming.”
Toledo Free Press, General Motors Co. and Panera Bread produced the holiday disc, from which 100 percent of proceeds will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana, Northwest Ohio Region. The $9.99 disc is available at local Panera Bread restaurants.
Back outside, Kaylee hung out with a few fans. One asked her, “What’s your favorite holiday song?” She replied, “Jingle Bells,” and launched into the version that mentions caped crusaders.
Walking to the car, she reminded her driver about stopping for ice cream at a local shop that offers a “Kaylee Cone.”