Yes, it’s the most wonderful time of the year…. For too many years I’ve been involved with the WAVM Beacon Santa Telethon — a 40-hour non-stop live television / radio / webcast production that is staged by the students of Maynard High School’s student-run WAVM station. The money raised by these students goes to the Beacon Santa Fund.
A gallery of my favorite images from the weekend can be found on my community site: http://community.dmg-photography.com
And if you are really hungry for pictures, the WAVM website has hundreds of photographs spanning the entire weekend.
For probably the past 10 years I’ve been photographing the event — trying to capture as much of the “behind the scenes” activities that go on.
For a few weeks before the telethon adult volunteers and staff members work to “tag” items for the auction. These items are stuffed into a tiny storage room until Friday afternoon when we finally pull them all out and spread them around the library so they can be grouped and prepared for on-air auctioning.
Live music is a featured part of the telethon. Headlining Friday night was “One Seventeen” a band of MHS grads from the 70s. The dudes were tight.
Here’s a shot of a quartet called “Limelight”
My friend Vic Lalli (“Mister Vic“) brings his music class into Studio B and sings a few holiday tunes. When you are bone-tired from a week of preparation and working until 2am with technical details, pictures like this make it all worthwhile.
Students man the phone bank and take bids on auction items. They do a great job under a lot of pressure.
Here are a few of the hosts celebrating the end of the telethon. A few minutes later some last minute donations put them over the $28,000 mark.
