Clay doodle sold for charity for $2,200!

Trump’s pen tops Doodle Day auction

Jodean Fox of Bettendorf leaned over the table where a doodle by baseball Hall of Fame righthander and former Chicago Cub Fergie Jenkins was on display.
Picking up the pin on top of the bidding form, she looked over her shoulder, and added $5 to the $175 bid, taking it to $180.
There was just 15 minutes left in the silent auction.

“We’re trying to get this for our brother, Joe Klein, for his 50th birthday,” Fox explained, adding that she and three of her siblings were in on the deal.
“We really want that,” she added. “His wife couldn’t be here. She’s at the Iowa-Minnesota game. But she told us to bid on it.”

And $180 is not a bad price to split between four people, she said.
Joe should really appreciate their efforts, whether they got the item or not. “He’s 47 now,” Fox said. “We’re just thinking ahead.”
Fox was just one of more than 300 people who attended the biannual auction at the Bettendorf Public Library. The event, the Library Fund’s Author & Celebrity Doodle Day, benefits the library and its many programs.

Doodles are scribbled artwork, sometimes drawn aimlessly, especially when preoccupied. There were 109 signed doodles and autographed photos on which to bid, each contributed by a celebrity from music, sports or TV and the movies to authors of adult and children’s books.

Others came from people like politicians Geraldine Ferraro, radio psychiatrist Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. There was even a skyline doodle by Donald Trump that hit the $300 mark during the silent auction. Even domestic diva Martha Stewart sent a signed photo.

Vicki Brogan of Bettendorf bid on an autographed photo of former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn. “That one’s for my husband,” she said, as she upped the bid to $90.
Brogan also put a bid on a signed photo of former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. “That one’s for me because I’m originally from Texas,” she added.
Bidding in the silent auction began at 6 p.m., and immediately two favorites were in contention. One was by the late master chef Julia Child, who died Aug. 13. By 7:45 p.m. the high bid on her doodle had reached $350.

The doodle drawn by singer Clay Aiken was going for $800 by 7:45 p.m.
“We had a good dozen or so calls from around the country about the Clay Aiken doodle,” said Todd Klein, executive director of the Library Foundation.
It seems word got out that Aiken had done a doodle and some advertising ended up on the pop star’s Web site, he added. “So we’ve taken a few proxy bids on it tonight.”

The top 10 doodles and photos in terms of number of bids as well as money would go from the silent auction to the open auction, Klein said.
Faye Clow, library director, said they begin contacting personalities and other people for doodles and photographs almost as soon as one auction is over with. “You can tell who are the most creative by who draws outside the square,” she said.

John Riches, a member of the library’s funding board, said that the last auction two years ago brought between $20,000 and $25,000.

Klein said this year’s goal of $27,000 easily was reached. “The Donald Trump piece went for $3,200, while the Clay Aiken piece went for $2,200,” he said.