Heard about this article thanks to Jody.

________________________________________________________________________________\
_________
A natural honor

A new children's TV award is named for 'Miss Jean' Worthley, whose 'Hodgepodge
Lodge' taught a generation about conservation
By Rob Hiaasen
Sun reporter
June 7, 2007

At 82, Jean Worthley occasionally drives by the old lodge to show the grandkids
where their grandmother once worked. The lodge still stands, behind the Maryland
Public Television building, although there is no hodge or podge - just creeping
wineberries and Canada thistle, as identified by the zoologist and former TV
host
known as "Miss Jean."

>From 1970 to 1977, Worthley was the maternal host of a children's program on
MPT
called The Hodgepodge Lodge that aired weekday afternoons on Channel 67. Her
children and botanist husband would often guest star - as well as pairs of local
children who appeared regularly on her nature program, which was syndicated
mainly
on the East Coast.

Thirty years later, it's time for a curtain call.

Her former station has created an award in her honor. Kevin Clash, the Baltimore
native behind Sesame Street's Elmo, will be the first recipient of the 'Miss
Jean'
Worthley Award for Service to Families and Children. MPT's Vision Honors Banquet
will be held Saturday at the Tremont Grand. Clash will be there, as will the
award's namesake and most of her six grown children and four grandchildren.

"I loved Miss Jean's show. I thought it was sweet and wonderful," says Clash,
46.
"She was very Mother-Naturish, which made her different than Mister Rogers and
his
make-believe. She was dealing with the environment already, which was
wonderful."

Clash kind of wishes the banquet was at the lodge, where he could have his
picture
taken with Miss Jean. He has never forgotten her or the show's contagious theme
song.

"We're off to the forest to see Miss Jean," jingled the opening song. As
deliberate and placid as Mister Rogers, Miss Jean would welcome her young
audience
each day to her lodge and to the "Discovery Table," where a snake, turtle,
rabbit
or mole would be freed from her gunnysack. Almost every animal would appear.
"Well, maybe not elephants," a boy named Brig Berney would recite while hanging
upside down from a tree.

Her show wasn't just a televised petting zoo. There were field trips, tips on
starting 4-H clubs and gentle reminders on caring for the environment. The show
wasn't live; it just felt like it. A chain saw in the neighborhood halted
filming
once. There would be the occasional animal with stomach problems. A rooster
might
be on the loose. A week-old calf might shake loose from its halter.

And her parrot, Aurora, was always by Miss Jean's side - or rather on her
shoulder. (Lived to be 38, that parrot. A female, it turned out.) To close each
show, Miss Jean gave her "Queen Victoria" wave and asked children to "come back
soon" to the Hodgepodge Lodge. The final credit read: "Have Fun With Nature."

After some 800, 28-minute-and-50-second shows on the back lot of MPT, Worthley -
a
former Episcopalian schoolteacher turned unlikely TV personality - hung up her
gunnysack in 1977. It wasn't about ratings or money. It was just time.

With her new hip and older Subaru wagon (bumper sticker: "Have you hugged a
Turtle
Today?"), Worthley dropped by the Hodgepodge Lodge this week. Some 30 years
later,
the station has never had the will nor heart to take down the set. A 1970s
photograph of Miss Jean hangs on the lodge's front door. For the camera, Miss
Jean's hair would be up in a barrette. She never used much makeup. The crew
pinned
a picture of a smiling Campbell's soup kid on the camera to remind the host to
smile.

Today, her hair is up, but she doesn't need a reminder to smile. Her laugh
hasn't
lost a step, nor has she lost her natural curiosity. Her leg is just sore from
walking on the new hip. Someone brings her a chair.

"It's nice to finally meet you," says Michael Golden, MPT's communications
director.

"Well, it's nice to be finally recognized after all these years," Worthley says.

Someone has a question.

"There are ants taking over an oak tree at my in-law's house. There's a lot of
sawdust," says her former fill-in director, George Beneman, the station's vice
president of technology. "Are the ants killing the tree?"

"Probably," says Miss Jean.

Another nature question.

"Do bullfrogs eat green frogs? I think bullfrogs are eating my green frogs,"
Beneman says.

Worthley says she does not believe bullfrogs eat green frogs.

Had anyone known she would be fielding questions, maybe the station could have
set
up a camera and recorded a reunion episode of The Hodgepodge Lodge. Miss Jean
would be ready to go. She would just need a couple of kids who, as Worthley said
back in the day, "would not run away with the show with their long stories."
Then,
there was the rare kid who would become speechless. Twenty-eight minutes and 50
seconds was a "long time to hold forth by yourself," as Worthley recalls.

Beginnings are often more interesting than endings, and Worthley's start in
local
children's programming is no exception. Her family had a 114-acre farm (dairy
cows, workhorses, ducks, sheep) in the field just beyond MPT's parking lot. In
1969, MPT began building a studio by it.

"My mother and I saw this tower rising up over here, so we climbed under the
fence," says Worthley, who later moved to an 18-acre, two-pond farm in
Finksburg.

At the time, she thought maybe she could answer phones at the new studio, but
her
reputation as a kindergarten teacher and nature lover had preceded her. A
television producer approached her about a nature show for children. After weeks
of planning and settling on the name (rejected: Miss Jean: Forest Detective),
The
Hodgepodge Lodge debuted in January 1970. She was 45.

Weather-permitting, they recorded at the lodge. When it rained, they used the
inside set in Studio A. The budget was nominal - the kids got a stipend and free
cookies, and the host made more than she did when teaching half-days at a church
school. Worthley's career highlight came in 1975 when she appeared on Mister
Rogers' Neighborhood. In the episode, she taught Fred Rogers how to make a
terrarium. She had earlier tried to get Rogers to come to Baltimore, but he
passed
on appearing on The Hodgepodge Lodge.

In 1977, the program ended, but it aired another two years in reruns. There was
no
farewell show.

"It was a wonderful chapter in my life," Worthley says. "I felt like I was
Cinderella - jumping from a kindergarten teacher to TV."

Worthley's grown viewers - some of whom became ecology majors, Audubon Society
members or television producers - e-mail or call her still. Her husband, Elmer,
passed away in 1991 on their 43rd wedding anniversary, but she still organizes
the
Worthley Botany Class he started. And she has her farm, a sort of lodge in
itself.

Jean Worthley can be found in her work clothes patrolling her blueberry patch,
where beavers have been feasting. She can be seen crawling on the ground,
cutting
back Japanese honeysuckle that's also invading her blueberries. Or, she might be
enjoying the sight of that 5-foot black snake that's been around or her new
favorite wildflower - a blue-eyed Mary.

Miss Jean is still having fun with nature.

________________________________________________________________________________\
_________
MPT Vision Honors

Clarisse Barron Mechanic Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts:

* The Rosenberg Family, represented by Henry Rosenberg and Ruth Marder, for its
support of area arts and culture, youth development, health and adult
self-sufficiency Frederick Breitenfeld Award for Visionary Leadership in Public
Media:

* Dr. Frederick Breitenfeld Jr., for being a pioneer in educational and
instructional television. He assisted with the creation of the Carnegie
Commission
on Educational Broadcasting, which led to the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967,
and
became the first executive director of the Maryland Educational-Cultural
Television Commission in 1966.

"Miss Jean" Worthley Award for Service to Families and Children:

* Kevin Clash, the Emmy-winning puppeteer and creative force behind Sesame
Street
characters Elmo, Hoots the Owl and Baby Natasha

[Source: Maryland Public Television

rob.hiaasen@...


Copyright (C) 2007, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery

Link to the article:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bal-to.missjean07jun07,1,5179959.\
story