November 24, 2025 • 11 mins
Marji Vertrees is the organizer of the Arthritis Foundation's Jingle Bell Run at Tom Sawyer Park on December 6. Bring your doggie, too! Santa wants everyone to feel the spirit!
She's got details on this year's fun event in a great chat with Terry Meiners
event site: jbr.org/louisville
She's got details on this year's fun event in a great chat with Terry Meiners
event site: jbr.org/louisville
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Birtrees, the school teacher, all around hero, local hero with
a jingle bell. Run him, Margie, it's good to see again.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Terry all right.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I got a teacher joke for it's not really a teacher,
but it's a comedian that I just thought was funny.
I knew you would appreciate this because of all your
years of teaching.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
A strict mom. I don't let my son have a smartphone,
obviously for porn, but also, you know what, kids don't
know how to use reference books. They just google stuff,
and I think that's actually really bad for their brains.
You know, I was raised on Encyclopedia's anybody else?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I still have all my childhood encyclopedias for nostalgia purposes.
So I took my son to the storage unit and
I said, if you can use these books to tell
me who is the Prime Minister of Great Britain in
World War Two, I will get you a brand new
twelve hundred dollars iPhone right now, right, And he goes
right to the w Encyclopedia and I was like, oh, no,
(00:59):
I underestimate he's gonna he's gonna look up World War two,
but instead he tried to look up who was the
prime minister?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
What an incredible victory for men?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That can't be true.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
That's all kids know with the reference book.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh yeah, who was?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Who is? What?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, when you're teaching like research writing, which starts in
elementary school of course, and when you were teaching researching
and things, trying to get them to understand that Google
is not right. It is not a source. Google is
(01:46):
a search engine. They they it's it blows their mind,
of course.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And then the old all the teachers out there and
professors and everybody trying to discern whether or not they're
being handed to The chat GPT write up is astounding.
Now it's just everything's there, just just you know, write
a paper. I needed to be one hundred and sixteen words,
not one hundred and fifteen. Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
It's a crazy world we live in.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah. Well, it's hard to teach people how to structure
sentences and things when they don't even have to put
forth any effort.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, And texting has just has changed students
writing too.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I will.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I will fight every year because even though I'm in
I'm a reading interventionist. Now I still help third grade
with writing. So I go in and I assist a
teacher with that in a small group of her students,
and just teaching students that the word is.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Because it's not because c u Z you know things
like that. You're laughing at me, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I know, I'm gone. I say, I have enough of
a Southern accent where if I void it's to text,
that'll still say GEO in n A. I meant going
to I'm gonna anyway. That's how that goes. So we'll
just see how the culture evolves in that direction. All told, though,
Indiana education you found does robust and moving in the
(03:16):
right direction.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Oh that's a different story for a different day. No,
I mean it's you know, I can say that every
day I give it my all. The teachers that I
work with give it, give it there all.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And and I'm.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Proud to be a public school teacher. I always will be.
And I love what I do.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And how's our boy, Ian Vertrees, who spent all those
years here?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Your husband, Well, he's he's good.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
He is loving life, good, loving the Louisville Cardinals and
the Chicago Bears, despite their victory against my Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, first off, was I played golf. I didn't pay
attention yesterday. Did Aaron Rodgers just say his hand hurt
or did he want to play for the Steelers?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Well, I didn't hear this, but Ian, on his way
home from the gym, was listening to the radio and
he said that evidently, he came out of the locker room,
did a lap around the field. This was, according to ESPN,
gave a rude gesture to some TV cameras or fans
(04:23):
or something, and then went back in the locker room.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Interesting because it's always about him. He loves to celebrate himself.
He loves him some hymn as they say, and no, yeah,
and so I'm surprised he didn't appear for that. But
Chicago did prevail over the Steelers.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
They did. Sorry, Bears are eight and three.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Right, They're they're dominating the division.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Bear down, Chicago, Bear Bear, No, let's go.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And I and I always say to your husband, you know,
how are my bears? And he goes, you're bears. I'm like,
just do it to stick a little dagger in there
now and again. Anyway, I'm glad he's doing well his
happiness career.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yes, he is as he is.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
He's he's in the finance world now and he really
enjoys it. But I will say it is odd coming
in here because I keep kind of turning my head
and I'm expecting to see him someplace.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
He spent so long there, twenty years, didn't he twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, Austin was waving at me.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's how that goes.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, yeah, he was here a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
All right, time for your jingle bell run. Tell me
the details.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It is back. It is the only.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Event for the Arthritis Foundation that serves the Louisville Metro
every year. It is Saturday, December sixth, and I am
the head of the planning committee, the committee chair, and
it's gonna be a lot of fun. Saturday December sixth
at EP Tom Sawyer Park. We have Ben Piney who
(05:52):
is with Extole Magazine.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
With Anngie Finton.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, he is our m C again and he was
a long time meteorologist who went by the name Ben.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Been Pine Yes, been pine but he now has has
gone back to Piney is a real name. Yes, So
that's how I knew him in college because we did
college TV together at Ball State.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, yeah, so I always knew him has been piney,
so I couldn't call him anything else anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So this is a benefit though, to try to eradicate
arthritis for the Arthritis Foundation.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, it is the number one cause of disability in
our nation. Uh. People people think that it is just
an old person's disease, but it's not. It impacts people
of all ages. Babies listen a year old are diagnosed.
There are several types of juvenile arthritis, many different kinds
that you can be diagnosed with. A lot of people
(06:50):
don't realize gout is a form of arthritis, but it
causes over a billion dollars in lost wages and met
A expenses every year. It is absolutely devastating to people
and to the you know, the medical world. And we
(07:12):
have come a long way with arthritis. It used to
be here takes some aspirin and that was it. But
there is so much we still have left to do
to help eradicate this because it not only impacts humans,
it impacts our pets too, and it's it's absolutely debilitating
for people.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Say the least, what happens at this event the jingle
bell run well, it is five K.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
It is timed or untimed. Doors open at eight am,
but you can register now online with a five dollars
discount code. It is good through this Thursday, Thanksgiving good
all day starting from today through through Thursday. Get five
dollars off with code thankful normal.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Spelling for that makes sense, yep.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
And it's a five K timed untimed options. It is
easy to run or walk this because it is mostly
on their exercise path and on pavement in the park,
so you're not running through woods, you know, anything like that.
(08:17):
So that's something that was very important to me when
we plotted out this course. I said, there are going
to be people that have arthritis that are doing this,
and we have to make sure that it is a
safe thing for for able body versus those that may
be struggling with this disease too. So pets are welcome. Dogs,
(08:38):
you know, are welcome. We're in their jingle bells.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you mean your little cats don't want to have
leashes and walk around?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Oh my gosh, yeah, do you get.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Do you any and get them to ever leave? Do
they ever walk out to the Oh, that's right, you
got to do that.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And it's horrible. Oh my god, it's horrible, especially for
Luke the boy. He gets major. We have to get
in that game a pent to try.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
To calm him down, just to get him to go
to the vet.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yes, yes, because not only does he have to go
to the regular vet like once a year, he has
to go to the vet cardiologist. Oh, because he has
very minor kitty heart disease. It's very minor, luckily, but yeah, yeah,
so there's a vet cardiologist here in.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Louisville, and there's a couple of days prepped to get
him ready for them. Although yes, he knows it's coming,
something's happening.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah, it majorly stresses stresses the kitty.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Mommy out let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Our dog doesn't like any other dogs either, loves people,
doesn't like dogs. So it's like that's one of those
things when he has to go just for grooming. Yeah, well,
it's just like, oh no, he gives you that look
like I gotta be around those creatures again.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
But yeah, there, so our event is dog friendly. They
wear their sweaters and everybody puts on jingle bells. So
it sounds like saying a slave, I love waking around
and we are a little bit different in our event,
we are the only jingle Bell Run, according to the
executive director that I work with, the only one that
(10:10):
has a silent auction, and like a duck Pond ornament
pool game. The silent auction, I have like twenty three
or twenty four items and it's good stuff. Passes to Angels, Envy,
Kentucky Kingdom, Holiday World Millionaires or at Churchill Downs lots
of stuff. And then for the ornament poll it's ten
(10:32):
dollars and you get at least ten dollars in gift
cards from the ornament. But we do have two fifty
dollars that are going to be on the tree too,
So all right, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You find the auction items at jingle bell dot org slash.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
The auction is just going to be the day Oh
I got there, Okay, and the ornament tree. But yes,
sign up JBR dot org slash Louisville. You don't want
to miss it. It is a lot of fun and
all that money goes to a great cause.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
All right, jb R for jingle Bell Run JBR dot
org slash Louisville.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
That'll get it done and use code thankful T H A.
N K F u L through Thanksgiving Day to get
five dollars off.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And if you put the second L on thankful, no.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I doubt it a word.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
No I got you school teacher.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
It's a suffix. F U L is a suffix means
to be full of thanks.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I knew you had a teaching element to go along
with that. All right, Love to your husband and your
in laws. You know they're all they're all good people.
You have such great people in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Margie, thank you good.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I'm pretty lucky, Margie Vertrees. And it is JBR dot
org slash loyal great city again. Yep, you two for
the jingle bell run back in a minute on news radio.
Wait forty w H A s
Birtrees, the school teacher, all around hero, local hero with
a jingle bell. Run him, Margie, it's good to see again.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Terry all right.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I got a teacher joke for it's not really a teacher,
but it's a comedian that I just thought was funny.
I knew you would appreciate this because of all your
years of teaching.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
A strict mom. I don't let my son have a smartphone,
obviously for porn, but also, you know what, kids don't
know how to use reference books. They just google stuff,
and I think that's actually really bad for their brains.
You know, I was raised on Encyclopedia's anybody else?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I still have all my childhood encyclopedias for nostalgia purposes.
So I took my son to the storage unit and
I said, if you can use these books to tell
me who is the Prime Minister of Great Britain in
World War Two, I will get you a brand new
twelve hundred dollars iPhone right now, right, And he goes
right to the w Encyclopedia and I was like, oh, no,
(00:59):
I underestimate he's gonna he's gonna look up World War two,
but instead he tried to look up who was the
prime minister?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
What an incredible victory for men?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That can't be true.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
That's all kids know with the reference book.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh yeah, who was?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Who is? What?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, when you're teaching like research writing, which starts in
elementary school of course, and when you were teaching researching
and things, trying to get them to understand that Google
is not right. It is not a source. Google is
(01:46):
a search engine. They they it's it blows their mind,
of course.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And then the old all the teachers out there and
professors and everybody trying to discern whether or not they're
being handed to The chat GPT write up is astounding.
Now it's just everything's there, just just you know, write
a paper. I needed to be one hundred and sixteen words,
not one hundred and fifteen. Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
It's a crazy world we live in.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah. Well, it's hard to teach people how to structure
sentences and things when they don't even have to put
forth any effort.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, And texting has just has changed students
writing too.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I will.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I will fight every year because even though I'm in
I'm a reading interventionist. Now I still help third grade
with writing. So I go in and I assist a
teacher with that in a small group of her students,
and just teaching students that the word is.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Because it's not because c u Z you know things
like that. You're laughing at me, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I know, I'm gone. I say, I have enough of
a Southern accent where if I void it's to text,
that'll still say GEO in n A. I meant going
to I'm gonna anyway. That's how that goes. So we'll
just see how the culture evolves in that direction. All told, though,
Indiana education you found does robust and moving in the
(03:16):
right direction.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Oh that's a different story for a different day. No,
I mean it's you know, I can say that every
day I give it my all. The teachers that I
work with give it, give it there all.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And and I'm.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Proud to be a public school teacher. I always will be.
And I love what I do.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And how's our boy, Ian Vertrees, who spent all those
years here?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Your husband, Well, he's he's good.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
He is loving life, good, loving the Louisville Cardinals and
the Chicago Bears, despite their victory against my Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, first off, was I played golf. I didn't pay
attention yesterday. Did Aaron Rodgers just say his hand hurt
or did he want to play for the Steelers?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Well, I didn't hear this, but Ian, on his way
home from the gym, was listening to the radio and
he said that evidently, he came out of the locker room,
did a lap around the field. This was, according to ESPN,
gave a rude gesture to some TV cameras or fans
(04:23):
or something, and then went back in the locker room.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Interesting because it's always about him. He loves to celebrate himself.
He loves him some hymn as they say, and no, yeah,
and so I'm surprised he didn't appear for that. But
Chicago did prevail over the Steelers.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
They did. Sorry, Bears are eight and three.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Right, They're they're dominating the division.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Bear down, Chicago, Bear Bear, No, let's go.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And I and I always say to your husband, you know,
how are my bears? And he goes, you're bears. I'm like,
just do it to stick a little dagger in there
now and again. Anyway, I'm glad he's doing well his
happiness career.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yes, he is as he is.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
He's he's in the finance world now and he really
enjoys it. But I will say it is odd coming
in here because I keep kind of turning my head
and I'm expecting to see him someplace.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
He spent so long there, twenty years, didn't he twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, Austin was waving at me.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's how that goes.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, yeah, he was here a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
All right, time for your jingle bell run. Tell me
the details.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It is back. It is the only.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Event for the Arthritis Foundation that serves the Louisville Metro
every year. It is Saturday, December sixth, and I am
the head of the planning committee, the committee chair, and
it's gonna be a lot of fun. Saturday December sixth
at EP Tom Sawyer Park. We have Ben Piney who
(05:52):
is with Extole Magazine.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
With Anngie Finton.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, he is our m C again and he was
a long time meteorologist who went by the name Ben.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Been Pine Yes, been pine but he now has has
gone back to Piney is a real name. Yes, So
that's how I knew him in college because we did
college TV together at Ball State.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, yeah, so I always knew him has been piney,
so I couldn't call him anything else anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So this is a benefit though, to try to eradicate
arthritis for the Arthritis Foundation.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, it is the number one cause of disability in
our nation. Uh. People people think that it is just
an old person's disease, but it's not. It impacts people
of all ages. Babies listen a year old are diagnosed.
There are several types of juvenile arthritis, many different kinds
that you can be diagnosed with. A lot of people
(06:50):
don't realize gout is a form of arthritis, but it
causes over a billion dollars in lost wages and met
A expenses every year. It is absolutely devastating to people
and to the you know, the medical world. And we
(07:12):
have come a long way with arthritis. It used to
be here takes some aspirin and that was it. But
there is so much we still have left to do
to help eradicate this because it not only impacts humans,
it impacts our pets too, and it's it's absolutely debilitating
for people.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Say the least, what happens at this event the jingle
bell run well, it is five K.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
It is timed or untimed. Doors open at eight am,
but you can register now online with a five dollars
discount code. It is good through this Thursday, Thanksgiving good
all day starting from today through through Thursday. Get five
dollars off with code thankful normal.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Spelling for that makes sense, yep.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
And it's a five K timed untimed options. It is
easy to run or walk this because it is mostly
on their exercise path and on pavement in the park,
so you're not running through woods, you know, anything like that.
(08:17):
So that's something that was very important to me when
we plotted out this course. I said, there are going
to be people that have arthritis that are doing this,
and we have to make sure that it is a
safe thing for for able body versus those that may
be struggling with this disease too. So pets are welcome. Dogs,
(08:38):
you know, are welcome. We're in their jingle bells.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you mean your little cats don't want to have
leashes and walk around?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Oh my gosh, yeah, do you get.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Do you any and get them to ever leave? Do
they ever walk out to the Oh, that's right, you
got to do that.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And it's horrible. Oh my god, it's horrible, especially for
Luke the boy. He gets major. We have to get
in that game a pent to try.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
To calm him down, just to get him to go
to the vet.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yes, yes, because not only does he have to go
to the regular vet like once a year, he has
to go to the vet cardiologist. Oh, because he has
very minor kitty heart disease. It's very minor, luckily, but yeah, yeah,
so there's a vet cardiologist here in.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Louisville, and there's a couple of days prepped to get
him ready for them. Although yes, he knows it's coming,
something's happening.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah, it majorly stresses stresses the kitty.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Mommy out let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Our dog doesn't like any other dogs either, loves people,
doesn't like dogs. So it's like that's one of those
things when he has to go just for grooming. Yeah, well,
it's just like, oh no, he gives you that look
like I gotta be around those creatures again.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
But yeah, there, so our event is dog friendly. They
wear their sweaters and everybody puts on jingle bells. So
it sounds like saying a slave, I love waking around
and we are a little bit different in our event,
we are the only jingle Bell Run, according to the
executive director that I work with, the only one that
(10:10):
has a silent auction, and like a duck Pond ornament
pool game. The silent auction, I have like twenty three
or twenty four items and it's good stuff. Passes to Angels, Envy,
Kentucky Kingdom, Holiday World Millionaires or at Churchill Downs lots
of stuff. And then for the ornament poll it's ten
(10:32):
dollars and you get at least ten dollars in gift
cards from the ornament. But we do have two fifty
dollars that are going to be on the tree too,
So all right, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You find the auction items at jingle bell dot org slash.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
The auction is just going to be the day Oh
I got there, Okay, and the ornament tree. But yes,
sign up JBR dot org slash Louisville. You don't want
to miss it. It is a lot of fun and
all that money goes to a great cause.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
All right, jb R for jingle Bell Run JBR dot
org slash Louisville.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
That'll get it done and use code thankful T H A.
N K F u L through Thanksgiving Day to get
five dollars off.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
And if you put the second L on thankful, no.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I doubt it a word.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
No I got you school teacher.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
It's a suffix. F U L is a suffix means
to be full of thanks.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I knew you had a teaching element to go along
with that. All right, Love to your husband and your
in laws. You know they're all they're all good people.
You have such great people in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Margie, thank you good.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I'm pretty lucky, Margie Vertrees. And it is JBR dot
org slash loyal great city again. Yep, you two for
the jingle bell run back in a minute on news radio.
Wait forty w H A s
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