Airwaves & Liberty

About two years ago, when I was the News Facilitator at WORT, Peter Lipton, one of the station’s board members, mentioned to me that he had a friend who would be great for volunteering in WORT’s news department. He described Jeff Erlanger as a guy who really follows news, knows the ins and outs of city politics, and even ran for city council. I called Jeff up and had him come by the station.

Jeff was warm, energetic, and excited to be involved. In my role as News Facilitator, I could usually tell which new reporters would stick around and do good work. It was a matter of the types of questions a new reporter would ask, whether their curiosity was genuine. And Jeff asked all the right questions.

Being quadriplegic, Jeff couldn’t engineer the board for his interviews. I had hoped to train his assistants to run the board, since my days were very busy with other work. But he had several assistants that rotated, and few of them came to WORT enough times to be taught much about board operating. So I engineered Jeff’s interviews (which were always well-researched and thoughtful). And I’m glad I did, because it gave me a chance to get to know the fellow. After his interviews ended, we’d talk about the issues of the day. We disagreed on some local issues, but had a good time talking, and I came to like Jeff quite a lot. He was clever, consistently friendly, and committed to community building.

I understand that Jeff was volunteering at WORT’s annual block party just a few hours before he choked on the food that would cut short his life. My former coworker Glenn tells me that he was his usual lively, high-spirited self that day. The news that Jeff has died has saddened me a great deal this week.

Though it has little connection directly to my current work at Pacifica, I’m pasting a couple articles about Jeff below.

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Jeff Erlanger, advocate for disabled, dies
From The Capital Times (Madison, WI)
by Kristin Czubkowski – 6/11/2007 2:09 pm
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/177377

In 36 years of life, Jeff Erlanger built a resume that could put many city politicians or political organizers to shame.

Former chairman of Madison’s Commission on People With Disabilities, chairman of the board of directors of the Community Living Alliance, member of the city’s Economic Development Commission and the Governor’s Committee for People With Disabilities, board member of Jewish Social Services and the Madison Area Community Land Trust — the list goes on.

Add in a run for the City Council and a childhood appearance on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” that led to a speech at the icon’s memorial in 2003, and Erlanger did more in his life than most people do with twice the amount of time.

This flurry of political and community activism was cut short Sunday when Erlanger died from respiratory complications. He had lived his entire life as a quadriplegic after doctors found a tumor on his spinal cord when he was 7 months old.

Full article at this link.

Another article about Jeff’s passing at this Wisconsin State Journal page.

And a tribute article from the Isthmus, Madison’s alternative weekly paper.