She left a big huge void in the community, so I'm concerned that there won't end up being the huge donations from the community, and we've always been known as the community with a heart.

The big guy (Bogan) came in and D.D. (Gillespie) left and that kind of created a void at the guard spot. Jeff was willing to let his numbers take a hit for a while until he figured everything out and the team figured everything out.

We would like people to know that we have lots of Variety coin tins and posters that they can use in their places of work, business, church, and other community venues. We will gladly deliver the tins/posters to them and pick them up prior to ninth of February, so that they can be tallied prior to the Variety telethon on Feb. 11 and 12.

My hope is that people remember to donate to Variety, and to realize that at any given time, something can happen in your own family and suddenly you might need them.

It was a volunteer position and that was her whole life, it would take someone who had that time to commit (to replace her), or it would take a lot of different people getting together who have little bits of time that could work together, because it was done so hugely. That made me think that it's important for people to step up and try to do what they can do for Variety to continue that, and to bring it into focus so the contributions continue to keep coming in.

He was a complete surprise as far as I was concerned. There was a void in the lineup and there were two or three candidates. I decided to go with Jamie. He not only came through, he became a star.