On the recordJune 26, 2014
I rise today to honor ``A Prairie Home Companion,'' which for 40 years has shared with its listeners the comings and goings of the good people of that most Minnesota of towns, Lake Wobegon--where as everyone knows, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. Only 12 people were in the audience for that very first broadcast on July 6, 1974, at the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College in Saint Paul. If those dozen people got there by car, they paid 55 cents per gallon to fill the tanks of their Ford Pintos or Plymouth Valiants. If they stopped for a McDonald's burger afterward, they paid 30 cents. How things have changed--and not just the price of gas and burgers! Today, 40 years later, more than 600 radio stations carry ``A Prairie Home Companion'' to four million listeners every week from the historic Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul. It has won a Peabody Award and has broadcast from nations including Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany and Iceland and nearly every State in the Nation. It has inspired a movie by the same name, which won four international awards. It has helped make Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media household names. And it has certainly made its creator and host, Garrison Keillor, a household name! Mr. Keillor has won Grammy and George Foster Peabody awards, not to mention the National Humanities Medal.…
