By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Retired newscaster Jerry Anderson channeled his best Les Nesman Thursday as foam turkeys were loaded onto drones for the annual turkey drop at the Wood County Museum.
As the turkeys hovered over the bullseyes below, Anderson recited the iconic lines from the WKRP Radio newsman during the 1978 episode of the sitcom in which live turkeys were tossed out of a helicopter – with the faulty expectation that they would fly down to the ground.
“There are turkeys crashing to earth right before our eyes,” Anderson said, mimicking Nesman. “One just crashed through the windshield of a parked car.”
“People are running and screaming … oh the humanity,” Anderson continued with the classic lines. “The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement.”
“Not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this.”
But in this case, the 226 small foam turkeys were dropped from drones over two chalk-drawn targets in the Wood County Museum parking lot. Then the crowd waited as a tape measurer was used to determine the winners of two $1,000 jackpots, two $750 second places, two $500 third places, plus bags of museum swag and some frozen turkeys.
“So you might win Thanksgiving dinner,” Anderson said.
Unlike the “curious but well behaved” spectators in the WKRP episode, who soon began running frantically to dodge turkeys dropping from the sky, the crowd at the museum waited with quiet anticipation as the winning turkeys were determined.
“It’s like watching an NFL replay,” Anderson said as officials measured multiple times to make sure they had the correct winners. “You can feel the excitement.”
The museum has held drone drop fundraisers in the past, with this being just the third “turkey drop.”
“It’s probably the most unique drone drop we’ve ever heard of,” said Annette Wells, director of the Wood County Museum.
Anderson, who has hosted countless fundraising events, said this was his first involving drone dropped birds. “I’ve never done a turkey drop.”
It was only fitting that Anderson was asked to play the part of WKRP newsman Les Nesman, the “man on the scene” at Pinedale Shopping Center for the turkey giveaway.
“My first love was radio,” Anderson said.
A spectator at the event, Travis Chapin, came decked out as WKRP Radio station manager Arthur Carlson. He was dressed in a torn up suit that looked like he was an extra in Hitchcock’s “Birds,” with feathers glued onto his face, hair and suit, and blotches of ketchup dotting his clothing and face.
Posted on Chapin’s back were Carlson’s famous words: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
