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by Robert Hale<\/em><\/p>\n You Know Dancer and Prancer, and Donner and Blitzen, but do you know Robert May?<\/p>\n It\u2019s that \u201cmost wonderful time of the year\u201d when a wide variety of special stories are told. Some are told in churches; some around fireplaces; some at bedside; some on television and movies; some in song.<\/p>\n While certainly not a Christmas Carol, the story of \u201cRudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer\u201d has become a popular Christmas song. Carols for the most part adhere to the biblical stories that gave us of Christmas traditions. But one theologian said, \u201cThe story of Rudolph surely resonates with biblical redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, perhaps, in a way. More \u201cbiblically resonant\u201d is the story of how the song came to be such a musical ornament.<\/p>\n The \u201cStory of Rudolph\u201d takes place in the \u201choly city\u201d of Chicago. In 1939, the powers-that-be at the gigantic catalog and retail company Montgomery Ward were looking for a story that the company could print and give away to children at Christmastime. Robert L. May, one of Ward\u2019s copywriters was assigned the task.<\/p>\n The story of Rudolph didn\u2019t come easily for May. He struggled, as many writers do, for a \u201chook\u201d – a theme that would capture the imagination of children and then hold their attention. He wanted a name for the reindeer that had a special sound to it \u2013 a sound that would stay in the minds of his readers. He had written limericks before. That\u2019s what his superiors at Montgomery Ward\u2019s wanted from him now.<\/p>\n Robert May was a shy, withdrawn person, and his personality is reflected in Rudolph. May decided that a reindeer with a physical abnormality, a character that was an underdog could be made into a hero. However, an underdog reindeer with a glowing nose, did not sit well at first with Montgomery Ward executives. They felt that a red nose would conjure up images of a drunk, something they didn\u2019t want associated with a children\u2019s story. But, May was determined. He went to Chicago\u2019s Lincoln Park Zoo with one of Ward\u2019s artists Denver Gillen, and had him sketch a reindeer \u2014 one with a red nose! The artwork won over the skeptics, and Rudolph with a shiny red nose was born.<\/p>\n For starters, Rudolph was not one of Santa\u2019s standby reindeer. He didn\u2019t live with Santa at the North Pole; he lived somewhere else known only to Robert May.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t yet a foggy Christmas Eve when Santa initially found Rudolph. Santa was moving through the house when he saw a strange light coming from the little reindeer\u2019s room. Santa peeked in and saw the bright shining nose. He could hardly believe his eyes. A few moments later as Santa was getting back into his sleigh he noticed heavy fog beginning to roll in. Santa made an instant decision; he asked for, and received, permission from Rudolph\u2019s parents to hitch the little guy with the strange bright nose to the front of the team of reindeer.<\/p>\n At the end of the night\u2019s journey around the world in which Rudolph made not one wrong turn, Santa said to Rudolph \u2013 in the original poem-story by Robert May \u201c By YOU last night\u2019s journey was actually bossed. Without you, I\u2019m certain we\u2019d all have been lost!\u201d<\/p>\n And, as the saying goes, the rest became history. Oh, yes, Santa also asked that Rudolph be allowed to move to the North Pole and live happily ever after. We have to assume, mom and dad were invited too.<\/p>\n At war\u2019s end several companies asked to license Rudolph as merchandising character. But Montgomery Ward and Company held on to the copyright. May was hurting financially. His wife had recently died from cancer. He worked up the courage to ask Sewell Avery, the CEO of Wards, if there was any way he, May, could receive some of the royalties the company was receiving from the story. Not only did Avery say \u201cyes,\u201d he turned over all royalties to May, which paid for his wife\u2019s medical and funeral bills.<\/p>\n But Rudolph\u2019s flight didn\u2019t end there. More was on the way. Rudolph would show up on movie screens in 1947 in a nine-minute cartoon. That meant more money in May\u2019s still-hurting bank account. The next \u201cgift\u201d May would receive came from his brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, a songwriter.<\/p>\n Marks penned the musical version of the story, giving us the now well-known version, and in 1949 cowboy star Gene Autry recorded \u201cRudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.\u201d It went on to sell over two million copies. It is still selling. It is a few thousand copies behind \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d as the best selling holiday record of all time, but it\u2019s doing very well after all these years. Then in 1964 Rudolph came to the TV screen in a big way, bringing yet more financial stability to Robert May\u2019s life. With Burl Ives narrating, the annual cartoon presentation remains a now permanent \u201cmust see\u201d at the holidays.<\/p>\n The CEO at Wards, Sewell Avery could have said \u201cNo\u201d to May; he could have kept the royalties flowing into the corporation coffers, but instead Avery demonstrated the \u201cChristmas Spirit\u201d when he turned over all financial gain from the song and character to May.<\/p>\n Now financially well off, having paid off his debts and his wife\u2019s medical accounts and becoming the manager of all things \u201cRudolph,\u201d May returned to Montgomery Ward in Chicago in 1971 where he remained until his death. He had built a substantial bank account; and he had all the medical care he would need in his final years.<\/p>\n May died in 1976. He lived out his years in relative comfort \u2013 a present brought to him on Christmas Eve in 1939 by the little reindeer with a very shiny nose.<\/p>\n