| OCR Text |
Show leeting Kenny Rogers, dream come true ronya Larson is a real fan of lger Kenny Rogers - and has Iked about someday meeting him. Mo one, however, thought her earn would ever come true, hler dream became reality, wever, when Rogers was in Salt ke City for an appearance at the It Palace. rhe reknown singer wasn't able to rform that Sunday evening, but he 1 meet with Tonya and her friend rry Lansing, and had his picture ten with them. 3oth girls are residents of the ah State Training School and are ifined to wheel chairs. Phe dream came about when Zella irner, a developmentalist in jasantview Cottage where the Is live, told a Salt Lake disc :key she wished she could get kets for the girls to the up-coming nny Rogers performance, rhe disk jockey asked him a letter ting the request. "Then he apparently wrote other letter and sent both to :nny Rogers Productions in lifornia. That kind of got the ball lling," Mrs. Warner said, rhe next thing she knew, a letter me from California with tickets t only for Tonya but for a friend d two of the staff to attend the ncert. were 'as excited as Tonya is," said Judy Ewell, another velopmentalist in the building. "We decided to make a big day of it for the girls," the two developmentalist develop-mentalist said, and on the day of the performance, they took the girls out to dinner as part of the outing. "They were on Cloud Nine all day," the developmentalists said. When they got to the Salt Palace, they learned Rogers couldn't perform per-form because of illness "but he didn't disappoint the girls." "We were taken back stage while Lee Greenwood was performing and when he (Kenny Rogers) came in he immediately said 'Hello Tonya' and went over to her. "He was so cute with the girls and had his picture taken with both of them. He treated them like he had known them all of their lives." He told the girls when he came back he would see they got tickets for the performance. "We figured he would be nice, but we didn't expect the reception we got. It was wonderful," Mrs. Warner said. The girls each came home with a Kenny Rogers T-shirt and posters of the performer. The pictures are now framed and hanging over their bed. "Tonya is such a Kenny Rogers fan. She knows all his songs and can tell them when they first start playing," Judy said, adding, "she lets us know when his songs are played on the radio. " The deveiopmentaiists, nurse and others accompanying the girls on their outing donated their day-off for the occasion, it was noted. |
