Off Hours
Former
NBFA Leader Stars On Reality TV Show
From 1963-1991,
Meredith R. Smith Jr., CAE, ran the National Business
Forms Association (now DMIA). In March, TV viewers began
watching Smith and his wife, Gretchen, running for clues
in Peru, Chile and Argentina. The couple stars on the
seventh season of “The Amazing Race,” a
2-time Emmy-winning CBS-TV reality show that airs Tuesdays
at 9 p.m. EST.
Many industry
veterans know Smith best by one letter—”R,”
his middle initial, which stands for Reynolds—and
as the person who launched many programs, services and
publications DMIA still offers to members. Now, millions
of people know him and his wife as retired grandparents
“Meredith and Gretchen” from Easton, Md.
“We were long-time viewers and fans of the show,”
Meredith says. “For a while, we would look at
each other and say, ‘We can do that!’ One
day, my daughter-in-law overheard us, got some application
forms and mailed them to us. She said, ‘It’s
time to put your money where your mouth is.’”
Their
mouths opened in surprise when CBS asked them to be
contestants. They are the oldest people to compete in
any of the show’s seven seasons. (Meredith is
69; Gretchen is 65.) The couple is racing 10 other 2-person
teams for a $1 million prize.
During each of the show’s 12 legs, teams race
toward a destination while facing “detours”
(a choice between two different ways to accomplish a
goal or reach a destination) and “roadblocks”
(a task in which only one member of the team may participate).
Upon completing tasks, contestants receive clues to
proceed. The destination for each leg is a “pit
stop,” and the last team to arrive there in each
episode is eliminated. As of March 28, seven couples
remained, and Meredith and Gretchen were in last place.
(For legal reasons, they can’t disclose details
about the show’s results.) “What’s
most important to all contestants is the ability to
endure,” Meredith says. “You just can’t
give up—you never know when something’s
going to happen to put you back in the race or knock
you out.”
The race demands brains and brawn. In Cuzco, Peru, during
the show’s first episode, teams chose between
roping two llamas and taking them to a pen and carrying
35 lbs. of alfalfa two-thirds of a mile to a store.
Most teams choosing “Rope a Llama” found
the task frustrating and time-consuming, but Meredith
completed it calmly and quickly. In Camping Suizo, Argentina,
during the third episode, the couple worked with three
professional rowers to navigate an inflatable raft seven
miles down a swift-moving river. The episode’s
roadblock: eating a traditional Argentine meal of cow
rib, pork sausage, blood sausage, cow intestine, cow
udder, an entire kidney and part of a cow’s saliva
gland. “I don’t care if I ever eat another
piece of beef again!” Meredith quips.
During the show’s fourth episode in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, contestant Ray (of team Ray and Deana) said
of Meredith and Gretchen, “I’m not losing
to a 70-year-old man and his wife, even if it was checkers.
They don’t belong in the game with us.”
In contrast, during a post-episode interview, Meredith
and Gretchen praised the remaining teams and said each
deserved respect.
“We’re not in the upper echelon, but we’ll
climb up there,” Gretchen said. “All it
takes is a stroke of luck or misfortune or a misread
clue—something that might catapult us up in front
of them.”
—Darin Painter
