Byline: Doug Moe
BACK IN January, when Packers quarterback Brett Favre decided to sell his 1997 Porsche, his buddy and longtime pilot, David Thomason, who lives part-time in Sun Prairie, offered to help by handling the auctioning of the Porsche on the Internet.
They got 20,000 hits in a 24-hour period, and last weekend the winner, Milwaukee financial planner Mei-Lyn Nelson, accompanied by her three children and Thomason, picked up the car at Favre's 445-acre spread outside of Hattiesburg, Miss. They drove to Favre's from Gulfport Sunday morning.
'Brett was outside doing lawn work when we got there,' Thomason was saying Wednesday.
The quarterback was in a particularly gracious mood, spending close to an hour with Nelson and her kids, signing the doors of the cars, telling stories, posing for pictures. Thomason reports that the money Favre got for the car -- $50,500 -- will go to the quarterback's charity, the Brett Favre Forward Foundation, which provides aid to disadvantaged and disabled children in Wisconsin and Mississippi.
The Porsche actually got back to Wisconsin before Nelson did. She'd hired a flatbed truck and driver for the car, and then her group stuck around long enough to have dinner at Favre's restaurant, run by the quarterback's mother, in Kiln, where they met Brett's brother, Scott Favre. ...
*
SPEAKING OF Favre, Jack DeLong of Middleton sent along a recent column from the Canton (Ohio) Repository, where DeLong once labored as city editor. The column, by Todd Porter, contained an extraordinary interview with Canton native Kenny Peterson, who was a rookie defensive lineman with the Packers last season. Peterson talked about Favre's appearance before the team in Oakland, after the quarterback learned his father had died. 'Brett came to the front,' Peterson said, 'and you could see the hurt in his face. Your heart just went out to him. He was trying to hold it in. He sniffed a couple of times, then he broke down. All his emotions fell out of him. An emotional wave hit the room and everyone was crying.
'What Brett said that night will stick with me for a long, long time,' Peterson continued. 'He told us he decided he was going to play the next night, not because of us, not because of his dad. Because of his love for the game. That gave me a whole different perspective. Here's a guy who can retire, walk away and take care of his family, his kids and his kids' kids, and not worry about anything the rest of his life ... and he's playing for the love of the game. It made me think, why am I really playing this game?' ...
Small world: Local music promoter Laurel Nash -- she's brought Merle Haggard and Ralph Stanley to town -- was doing some research this week on a hot bluegrass band, King Wilkie, she's bringing to Madison in April. Nash was on a Nashville-based Web site, Commotion PR, getting information on the band when she noticed the Commotion PR founder, Kay Clary, arrived in Nashville from Wisconsin. It gets better. Clary's bio says that while attending UW-Madison, she bartended at Merlyn's, a once-popular music club on State Street. Nash was close to Merlyn's owners, the Ledwith family, and spent a lot of time at the nightclub, never dreaming it would show up in the resume of a top Nashville PR agent. Old Madison quiz: Which mega-band played Merlyn's in 1981, before hitting it huge? Answer: U2. ...
The Wisconsin Historical Society has put together a press release on the society's archives of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, after the question of when John Kerry left the organization was debated in newspaper stories in the New York Sun and Kansas City Star. 'Tour of Duty' author Doug Brinkley indicated a Kerry resignation letter is housed in Madison but the society has not been able to locate it. That doesn't mean it isn't there: The VVAW archives are part of the society's Social Action Collection and consist of some 46 cartons and seven document boxes of paper records; 36 tape recordings; 28 video tapes, photos and more. ...
Ron and Petie Rudy of Madison are just back from San Diego, where their son Paul Rudy -- a former WKOW-TV/Channel 27 sports reporter -- just received the 'Distinguished American' award at the San Diego Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame's 32nd annual banquet. Rudy, today sports director at KUSI-TV in San Diego, has won numerous regional Emmys there. ...
*
MOE KNOWS: The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel profiled Madison golfer Jerry Kelly Wednesday, quoting U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Hal Sutton on Kelly: 'He's a feisty little guy. If you got in a ring with him and had to fight him, he would fight you to the death.' Right now Kelly is fighting to make Sutton's team. ... The Boston Globe on Tuesday took note of Madison financial adviser Jay Handy's Ironman and marathon running successes despite having Type 1 diabetes. ... And the Los Angeles Times interviewed UW-Madison librarian and J.R.R. Tolkien scholar Richard West for its story Wednesday on Marquette's Tolkien collection, which is the best in the world. 'If you have any free time,' West said, 'you go. You sit. And you absorb.'
CAPTION(S):
Submitted photo
Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre signs his 1997 Porsche, which he sold on the Internet earlier this year, before handing over the keys to new owner Mei-Lyn Nelson. Proceeds from the sale will go to charity.
