By Jim Knippenberg
Enquirer staff writer

Here's a really good reason to set your alarm: One of Cincinnati's favorite bands will be showing up on the Jerry Lewis Telethon (6 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday, Channel 64).

The Mistics, a quartet and a favorite on the party circuit, will fly out to Los Angeles early today so they can do an a capella "Old Man River" and their original composition "I'll Be the One." They're scheduled to perform at 6:40 a.m., but the telethon almost always runs behind schedule.

The Mistics got the gig after they saw a blurb in the paper about a Telethon "Star Search" and decided to submit a tape. They were selected out of more than 2,000 submissions from regional bands. The Telethon only selected six bands.

The band - brothers Kenn and David Godfrey and brothers Darryl and Mike Haley - has been together 21 years, doing a lot of covers (Stylistics, Temptations, Doobie Brothers) plus their own material. Hear the original stuff on their first CD, This is Now, or on their new one, I'll Be the One, due out the middle of this month.

The only bad part about the Telethon date: They had Friday and Saturday bookings and they have to fly back Monday night to keep a Wednesday commitment, leaving no time to chill in L.A.

Visit them at www.themistics.com.

Locally, the Telethon is hosted by Channel 64 anchors Kimberly Moening and Kristan Thorne, on-air personalities Bob Herzog and Jen Dalton, and Ed Hartman, of Furniture Fair commercials fame.

Explosive wedding

Of course, anything involving WEBN-FM's Wildman Walker would have to be "explosive," but this is more so. He gets married at 7 p.m. today on the lower Serpentine Wall as part of the Toyota/WEBN Fireworks festivities.

The wedding is the climax of a Who Wants to Marry Wildman promotion that drew thousands of entries and sent Wildman off on hundreds of "tryout" dates.

The winner? Lisa from Cleves.

Wildman's son Petey is best man, the Rev. Ashley Beagle will officiate and the 'EBN Frog will give the bride away. The station will broadcast the ceremony live.

Station of the Year

Is WUBE-FM having a hot year or what? The Country Music Association just announced a nomination for 'UBE as Station of the Year in the Large Market category.

This on top of the Radio & Records Industry Achievement Award the station's Duke Hamilton won earlier this year when he was named Country Music Director of the Year.

'UBE won't know if it wins until Nov. 9.

Simply the best

Cincinnati magazine was named Best Magazine in Ohio at the recent Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards in Cleveland. It also won in 2002.

It took four other firsts as well: Linda Vaccariello's "What the (Bleep) was Jerry Thinking?" was first in Personality Profile; her "Rough Draft" was first in Arts Feature; her Witness column was first in Magazine Departments/Columns. Jason Fagone's "When the Vampires Attack" was first in Magazine General Feature.

More awards

Radio Reading Services, a division of Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (CAB), recently picked up four major awards from the International Association of Audio Information Services.

The subscription station, a sideband of WGUC-FM that reads newspapers, magazines and books for the visually impaired, won for volunteers Scott Starks (best newspapers category), Steve Kleene (best news digest), Shirley Griffith (best narrative reading) and Steve Ledwin (thematic production).

E-mail jknippenberg@enquirer.com