Reaching your community.

Late spring is tornado season in the Midwest Sometimes storms turn destructive, even deadly That's what happened in the small farming community of Spencer, S.D., just before sunset on May 30, 1998.

In a matter of minutes, a powerful tornado

with peak winds of 246 mph left six people dead, 150 hurt and every home and business damaged or destroyed. The crumpled steel water tower in the center of town became a national symbol of the devastation. Spencer, as we knew it, was gone forever.

By sunrise, the town's population swelled tenfold as rescue workers, dean-up volunteers, reporters and satellite trucks converged on Spencer. Our television signal became a lifeline for everybody, from concerned family members to caring strangers. We were asked to help locate relatives, to put out a call for food for volunteers, and to seek clothing and temporary shelter for the many families left homeless.

But we knew that somehow we had to do more.

It became apparent through our own news coverage that what was most needed to rebuild this town and these lives was money. So, on June 3, we closed our 6 p.m. newscast by asking viewers to open their hearts and their wallets. For the next three-and-a-half hours, we blew out the usual programming and commercials to air a live telethon. Reporters in the field shared personal stories of the disaster. Anchors in our studio and in Spencer made the pleas. Viewers responded like never before.

Businesses offered five-figure incentives for matching pledges. Children brought their piggy banks to the station. We even had a traffic jam outside our studio! When it was over, 4,000 individual pledges were taken from around the world (thanks to the Internet). More than $1 million was deposited into the Spencer Tornado Relief Fund. But my work was just beginning. I served the next two years on a committee appointed by our governor that distributed all the money on a case-by-case, need-by-need basis.

Sir Winston Churchill once observed, "You make a living by what you earn, you make a life by what you give." Journalists are in a unique position to make a meaningful difference in their community. Public service isn't an obligation, it's an opportunity. Successful news organizations are those that are connected to their community. The efforts of our staff, and the response of our viewers, helped to restore hope to the people of Spencer. That was something the tornado could not take away.

Mark Millage is the news director at KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, S.D., and chairman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. His station won the SDX Award for public service in 1999for coverage of the Spencer tornado.

PUBLIC SERVICE -- NEWSPAPER/WIRE SERVICE

Circulation 100,000 or greater

Mark Katches, William Heisel, Ronald Campbell, Michael Goulding and Sharon Henry

The Orange County (Calif.) Register

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