In December 1999, Laughlin met with Diane Werts and Richard Xaver, both members of "Beyond Our Control" from 1971 to 1974, and Joe Dundon, a sales executive with WNDU and fellow adviser to the program from 1968 to 1981, to form an alumni association for the show. They've managed to locate a little more than half of the 350 area high school students who participated in "Beyond Our Control" during its 18-year run and plan a reunion the weekend of July 27-29, 2001, in South Bend.

Xaver oversees the "Beyond Our Control" Web site and has been making weekly trips from his home in Bloomington, Ind., to South Bend since Laughlin's cancer diagnosis this fall to visit and work together on the show's archives.

"His love for the show and for the people in it, and his joy for what it did for so many of us was so apparent," Xaver says. "Artists are always their own worst critics, and I think he felt that his contribution to the success of that program was no more and no less than anyone else's. I would disagree with that. I think that Denny's dedication and love for the program and his understanding of its effect on the people who worked on it was absolutely essential to keeping the show alive."

Dave Simkins, the executive producer of Fox's "Freaky Links," worked with Laughlin on "Beyond Our Control" from 1973 to 1977.

"I have this sense of Denny as a blur," Simkins said from his production office in California. "What I mean by that is running around the set, shifting ladders, making sure everything was ready. We would write these crazy sketches and wild stories, and it was up to us to build these props, but it was up to Denny to make sure it happened. Denny was always sort of in the background, but he was the one who made it happen."

Simkins and several other California-based "Beyond Our Control" alumni were together at a holiday party at the home of 1973-74 alumnus Steve Wyant when they learned of Laughlin's death the night of Dec. 16.

"We were all like 15 again," Simkins said. "I guess I always looked to Denny as sort of a gentle uncle. He was so nonjudgmental about what we were all trying to do and was just there to support us and make it easier for us to accomplish what we did. I think about how hard he worked on those Saturday mornings. This was a guy who had a family who was there on Saturday mornings helping a bunch of teen-agers. He didn't have to do that, but he did."

Werts echoed Simkins' thoughts and said Laughlin possessed an openness that made him "an artist in all aspects of his life" and that allowed him to work with people, especially teen-agers, without any preconceptions.

"He just accepted you as another human being, and that was just so important for somebody at that stage of life," the Newsday television critic said from her home in Princeton, N.J. "Not that he couldn't call you on the carpet, but it was never in the sense of an authority figure, but as a friend who had done more and seen more. He just wanted to help you grow into a nice, creative, fun person."

Andrea Rogers, a 1985 to 1986 "Beyond Our Control" alumna, said Laughlin was "extremely involved" in the show's production. She and her husband, 1986

company member Donnie Ehmen, own Grass Roots Media, a commercial and documentary video production company in South Bend.

"Because he was so involved in the program and had the utmost confidence in all these people, it kind of set the tone for the group," Rogers said. It was just nice to see an adult working with us in a different capacity than our other extracurricular teachers. He was more a part of what the group was doing than what I might have seen in some very dedicated adult advisers to student groups. He seemed to really enjoy it."

Wyant, an editor on the morning television show "Good Day L.A." on the Los Angeles-area Fox affiliate, returned to "Beyond Our Control" as a writing adviser from 1982 to 1984.

"Denny and I had a friendly relationship, sometimes at odds with each other," Wyant says of his second stint on the program. "Denny was the voice of reason. He had to have the final say on what we could get away with. My job was to push the limit. There was never an animosity between us, but there was always a give-and-take about what we could put on the air. ... I think we scared him once or twice, but whenever it was possible to get it on the air, he would do it."

Wyant says it's important to remember that Laughlin served as an adviser to "Beyond Our Control" longer than anyone else, and he "made the show work" for nine years after Williams' death.

"A lot of kids had a chance to be in this show because he picked up the reins, and they wouldn't have the jobs they have or be the people they are if he hadn't," he says.

Lee Lodyga followed his sister, Lynn Lodyga Disbrow, into the "Beyond Our Control" company for the 1981 to 1984 seasons. Disbrow had been with the company in 1977 and 1978, Williams' last year and the first year after his death.

"Going into the company, it was very important to me to live up to what I had grown up watching," Lodyga said from California, where he serves as the coordinator of product develop for EMI Music's catalog marketing group. "Denny always made you feel that you were as important and what we were doing was as important as anything that the company had done before. He made us feel that each year was special."

The students' humor could often provoke the ire of station management, but Lodyga said Laughlin hid that from the company members.

"You could tell when he had a bad meeting with WNDU, but it never came back to us," Lodyga said. "I remember stuff getting stopped, but if it wasn't stopped, it wasn't our fault. It was, but Denny always fought those battles. I don't think any of us knew how WNDU felt about us, except for the advisers. Denny took all that and really kept it separate, which was great because it didn't keep us from being creative. I think it was much more important to Denny that we grew and blossomed creatively. It was important to him that we never felt there were any barriers."

Bob Medich, a "Beyond Our Control" student from 1974 to 1978 and writing adviser from 1978 to 1979, said Laughlin's ability to produce a set, prop or logo under pressure "baffled" him at first.

"We would write something on Monday and he would have it by Saturday, and I was amazed by how he did that," Medich said from Chicago, where he works as the director of advertising and public relations at the Old Town School of Folk Music. "This was in the days before computers. Denny was a true artist. Everything was laid out or hand-drawn and made physically, whereas most graphics on television today are generated by computers."

He said the lessons he learned from the "Beyond Our Control" advisers continue to influence his and others' lives on professional and personal levels.

"Both Dave and Denny planted things in us that we still use today: the way you look at a problem creatively, the way you deal with people," Medich said. "This was a man who taught me so much about my creative self and gave me permission to do things, to take chances and find what's inside. I'll miss that. Whenever I talked to him, he was always enthusiastic about what you were doing. When I saw him in October, we didn't talk about his illness. We talked about what was , and we talked about what was next for me."

In a farewell letter to "Beyond Our Control" members, Laughlin wrote of his disappointment at not being able to attend the reunion, but recounted the joy planning it had given him and urged his former students to attend.

"In preparation for the reunion I have been watching old tapes, remembering casting, early crew, tedious production, but then the joy of standing around the monitor watching the results and gathering weekends to watch the show," Laughlin wrote. "Most of all I love watching the credits rolling to Nilsson's 'Remember ...', seeing all your names and being so proud that mine was there along with yours. I can't begin to tell you how much you mean to me and can never thank you enough for making my life so full and fun."

Staff writer Andrew S. Hughes: ahughes@sbtinfo.com (219) 235-6377