[clunking noise, static]
♪ [synthesizer disco] ♪
- Announcer: Live! from the studios
of Wisconsin Public Television. [crackle]
$50, that's money, and I want $75.
- Wild.
- Surprising.
- Are we having fun here? - Phone bank: Yeah!
- Noisy. - Lots to see. - Excitement.
- The hat is gonna go in the fire.
- Woman: Definitely entertainment.
- We need some overbids. - Man: Teamwork.
- Its own unique animal.
- Sports night, sports night!
- Organized chaos. - We're going to have a good time.
- ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah! ♪ - Pretty much controlled chaos.
[loud crash, pieces breaking]
- Most of the time controlled.
- It was a beast at times, but, boy, what a fun beast.
- Go! - $2,000.
- Yeah, all right! All right!
- Shirwil: I worked on Auction for 34 years
and volunteered for one.
The first Auction was 1976.
- Shel Ellestad: And I had watched the first Auction
and local newscasters were the auctioneers
and they read the pledge sheets
like they read their news.
I was just snoozing.
And I said, you know, I'm an enthusiastic guy.
I can do better than that. (laughs)
- Theola: When I first started volunteering,
I worked the phones which was really interesting.
I found myself wanting to-- always wanted my people to win.
Get the auction, bid, bid, bid.
And, eventually, I became the Saturday night closing emcee,
which I really, really enjoyed.
Bid high! And win this one!
- Jacki: It was in 1979.
I was watching my son play soccer and one of the mothers
kept talking to me about Auction and said I should try it.
So I went down, did Telegetting
and stayed through and did Warehouse.
- Bob: I came down one day because they said
they were looking for people to help at Auction.
And I stopped in and they started making me write copy.
And having an engineer write copy is kind of a misnomer.
- Kerman: I started working at the station in 1982.
One day, somebody came in and they said,
"You know, Pickup and Pay needs help.
And then I kept volunteering more and more
so that I was taking vacation time
and coming in to volunteer for Pickup and Pay.
- Karen: Theola, if I say "show," will you say "case"?
- Theola: I'm gonna definitely say "case..."
I'm a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated.
And I said, This would be a great
volunteer service thing for us to do.
And then, eventually I asked my brothers
at Phi Beta Sigma to come and join me.
And then I started bringing my church members.
So, I was like, I'm going to have fun now.
If I'm going to do this, we're going to have fun.
- Hey, I'm Shel Ellestad, the oldest living auctioneer...
My dad had a bowler hat
and then I started looking for wild or strange hats.
And it just sort of got out of hand.
Hey, the bids are coming in fast!
It's beautiful.
Let's get going!
And now, let's get to work!
I had twenty-one at the max.
Thought I'd dress up a little bit...
I have had people stop me on the street and say,
"You know, we really love you putting on all those hats."
That's a good thing for Auction.
- Kerman: For the typical auction,
it took between 800 and almost 1,000 volunteers.
There's no way that we could have staff do that.
- Shirwil: there was a lot of ownership of Auction
for the volunteers and I think that without that,
the Auction would not have happened.
They showed up for setting up the phone banks and boards,
to paint it, to decorate it,
to put the signage up, to set up Pickup and Pay,
and confirmation, and so forth and so on.
It was important for me actually, because there's no way
I could be in all these places at one time.
- Theola: You see that iceberg at the top.
But if you go underneath, it's really, really, really deep.
People didn't see the really, really deep stuff.
They just saw what television presented to them
and they didn't see everybody
and all the workings happening at the same time.
- Kerman: Auction Cabinet was a group of leadership volunteers.
These are people that knew their areas,
certain areas in particular, extremely well.
- Jacki: They wanted it to be the best that it could be.
I had a lot of respect for their insight,
because they had good ideas.
- Kerman: They were very, very dedicated to Auction,
understood how Auction worked.
I really relied on their expertise.
(cheers) - The best you have ever hung a lip on!
- Jacki: The most fun I've had was volunteering.
Everybody was there because they wanted to be there.
- We know that the auction would not be possible
without all these great people.
- We want to thank all our volunteers...
- Kerman: For a lot of people, it's that idea of
"Here's something that I can do
"to help Wisconsin Public Television."
You know, something that I really love.
And they could come in and they could have fun.
- Blue Phi! (volunteers echo weakly)
Oh, that was very weak, but none the less.
- Theola: Every year I had a different group of people
who worked with me.
We just had a blast.
♪ ... your feet to Morgan Shoes ♪
We used to like to sing... (laughs)
...so, they'd sing and then, everybody else get to going.
So, it really made the night really, really fun.
- Bob: It's the family aspect of it
that really drove the whole thing and made it fun.
Schaefer family group is a group of a bunch of different folks.
My wife helped out.
As the kids got older, they started helping,
Their friends started coming.
One of our friends came in from New York every year
for the last several years.
- Theola: They would tell you where they worked
and who they were with, and about their families
and their grandchildren.
- Shel: There's hundreds of people
that I consider my friends...
many I haven't a clue what their name is.
Now, it's really a whole bunch of friends
that I wouldn't have otherwise had a chance to even meet.
Getting a chance to see them once a year is just a treat.
- Jacki: I loved it. I loved Auction.
I loved the volunteers.
The staff at the station and all the departments
were tremendous to work with.
- Jeanan: Wouldn't it be really cool to watch on an HDTV? - Wow!
- Theola: It's a sister and brotherhood.
And so, the point was to make sure
that we get got our work done first,
and yet, have fun.
- Kerman: And that was the bottom line.
No matter what, they were there to help Auction
and help Auction be a success.
- Bob: Aren't many things where you can come
and have a good time, enjoy good food,
and volunteer as a family, from young on.
- I'm Bailey, and I'll be working on the F board.
- Kerman: It was really fun to watch kids
kind of grow up with Auction.
- Jacki: People would volunteer year after year,
and they'd see somebody's kid come in and say,
"Oh, my God, have you grown up!"
- Theola: And it always just makes me happy
to see children be engaged in volunteering because
that's sort of set the momentum for them, as they grow up,
that "you give" and then, "you get back what you give out."
People call it karma, I just call it blessings.
- You're a person who likes to put things on their feet.
- I am. - You are, it's true.
- Kerman: I've said it many many times
and it's always been true,
"Auction happens because of the volunteers.
- ♪ Soooooo, sweet ♪
Good night, everybody!
♪ ♪