Some of my Brushes With Fame

When I was the youth leader for a church in Marion, Iowa, one of the kids in the high school group I led was a boy with aspirations to be an actor. Ron Livingston starred with Jennifer Anniston in "Office Space" and played a leading role in the HBO Series "Band of Brothers". He is currently playing the role of Jack Berger opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in "Sex And The City" on HBO. I guess I wasn't much of a role model at church.

My first full-time job was as a newspaper reporter in Spencer, Iowa. One of the first persons I  interviewed (other than the local sheriff and the head lifeguard) was Red Skelton. He was in town for an upcoming performance at the local county fair. He was every bit as friendly and gracious as his TV image led you to believe.

In 1983 I wrote "The First 50 Years", the history of Collins Radio Company, which later became Rockwell Collins. The book includes an account of how Ross Perot attempted an unfriendly takeover of the company founded by Arthur Collins. The strange thing is if you do a Google search for "Ross Perot Ken Braband", your search takes you to a conspiracy theory page that attempts to point out connections between Collins Radio and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In this case, fiction is certainly stranger than truth because there is no truth at all to the connection. UPDATE: The aforementioned web page has apparently been deleted from the web. 

One of my friends and former coworkers is Bob Pratt, who was creative director at Sorgel Studios when I was senior writer there. Before entering the world of business communications, Bob's career included many acting roles, including starring in "Marriage: Year One" with Sally Field, and "The Hired Hand" with Peter Fonda. Bob now lives in New Mexico and works as a freelance creative director and writer under the company name Home Page Ink.

On April 12, 2001 while attending a baseball game at the new Miller Park stadium in Milwaukee, I happened to be taking a walking tour of the new facility during a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game when Brewers infielder Jose Hernandez hit a grand slam home run that bounced into the visitor's bull pen and then into the bleachers and my waiting hands. It was the first grand slam ever hit in Miller Park. I still have the ball. A friend created a mock Sports Illustrated cover to mark the event.