Former Salina couple create religious video for children

A former Salinan and his wife have developed a religious video for children that is available across the country, and the couple have plans to produce more videos in the future.

Wayne Laugesen, who worked at the Salina Journal from 1987 to 1991 and now lives in Boulder, Colo., said the video, “Holy Baby, Seven Prayers in Seven Languages,” is based on the same concepts as the Baby Einstein and Baby Genius videos that are on the market.

“What we wanted was the kind of repetition that you get in those videos, but prayer-oriented,” Laugesen said. “Those videos work well educationally and are philosophically sound. Kids of that age are sponges; they learn by hearing and seeing things over and over again.”

Laugesen and his wife, Dede, a University of Colorado graduate and former journalist, decided to focus the first video on the rosary, after Pope John Paul II’s declaration of the Year of the Rosary. That declaration also is the reasoning behind the name of the production company, The Rosary Project.

“The pope wrote a letter in the fall of 1992, imploring Catholics to once again take up the rosary in their own lives, and to instill the rosary in the lives of children, using creative, positive and impassioned means,” Laugesen said. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

The 30-minute video, geared toward children up to age 5, begins with an animated cartoon introduction featuring Baby Scholastica and a cast of dancing letters. Young children perform, “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” then recite the seven prayers of the rosary — “Sign of the Cross,” “Apostle’s Creed,” “Our Father,” “Hail Mary,” “Glory Be,” “O My Jesus,” and “Hail Holy Queen.” Each prayer is recited in English, French, Spanish, Latin, Vietnamese, German and Portuguese.

Between each of the prayers is music and animation.

Laugesen said viewers can listen to the video in each or all of the languages.

The Laugesens have four sons — Walter, 1, Huey, 3, Oscar, 5, and George, 9. The three younger boys appear in the video.

The video was released Aug. 15, 2003, the Feast of the Assumption, and 10,000 have been produced.

Laugesen said he and his wife and their partner, Scott Weiser, initially planned to sell the video only through their Internet site and a toll-free number. But people who read about the video in Catholic publications and other media began asking for the product in religious stores. The video also was popular at the Catholic Festival of Faith in Chicago, where it was picked up by Heartbeat Records.