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Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning, etc.Click here for a full-screen or mobile-ready map.00000178-cc7d-da8b-a77d-ec7d2fad0000

Here Say: Your Stories about Waiting, Told at Columbia Regional Airport

Claire Banderas
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KBIA

Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning and more. To see where we've been, check out our interactive map. And to hear your favorite stories from last season, you can find our free podcast on iTunes.

  

  We met Jeff Carlsen, who told us about his wedding-day mishap.

“34 and a half years ago when I got married, I decided to rent a limo for my wife, which my father-in-law was not happy about. And unfortunately, I was at the church and the limo didn’t come. And 34 and a half years ago, there was no such thing as cell phones and email or anything like that. So we just had to wait until they figured out how to get here because they had no car and no keys to any of the other vehicles around the park there, so that was a long wait. They finally came and they finally got there, and then the organist wasn’t there. But at that point, who cares?”

Liz Amirault was waiting at the airport with her aunt and uncle. She told us about her long-distance relationship, and how her family has helped her in a time of need.

Credit Molly Olmstead / KBIA
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KBIA
Liz Amirault

“My only waiting story that I can think of is right now I’m waiting for my boyfriend to get out of the army but  he’s getting ready to go on a deployment in May for 15 months. And then, hopefully, after that he’ll be back and things can go from there. I’m also waiting here at the airport right now. They’re leaving because they came down because my mom had just passed away a couple weeks ago. They’re back and they’ve been here for a couple weeks helping us just go through her stuff and declutter. I don’t really mind waiting, I wish they’d stay longer.”

Credit Claire Banderas / KBIA
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KBIA
Gene Hill

  Gene Hill, told us about a time when he helped a fellow passenger while he was waiting for a flight.

“I was actually on the flight to Chicago and there was a lady who was pregnant before the flights and she kept pacing in the airport. She kept saying “I’m not gonna have the baby, I’m not gonna have the baby. I’m gonna make the flight, make the flight.” And it just looked like it wasn’t gonna happen, it wasn’t gonna happen. Until she was sitting next to me and said “My water just broke I think.” So instead of waiting for the flight I actually went to the hospital with her, and she had the baby and her husband and everybody was there. And then I caught a flight the next day.”

Credit Riley Beggin / KBIA
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KBIA
Leslie Lyons

  We met Leslie Lyons, a professor at the University of Missouri. She’s a geneticist who runs a lab that develops genetic tools for cats and other pets.

“One of the things I spend a lot of time waiting on is how my grant apps are going to do. One of the biggest ones is to the NIH. When we submit these NIH grants it’s kind of like having a baby. You submit the grant in September, then you gotta wait months and months until you see your score, and then you know the baby’s kind of viable. And then you gotta wait for the baby to be born and that’ll be several months later as well and that’s when the actual money comes. So we spend a lot of time waiting on those and sometimes it’s tedious and you find out your baby’s not gonna make it and then you have to try again. So it could be years before you actually get your funding for some very good projects.”

Riley comes to KBIA from Minneapolis after a four-year stint in Madison, WI, where she ate cheese curds and read about history. She is now a second-year graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism she studies investigative and radio reporting.