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It was just an on-air telephone interview with a still photo to illustrate it — but you could still hear Lance Carr’s smile coming through loud and clear, all the way from Colorado.

“I can’t believe it. I’m so excited,” Carr told TODAY’s Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb when he learned he is the first person chosen to be featured on their “Everyone Has a Story” series.

Gifford had all she could do to keep from reaching for the tissues as she told Carr that he would be getting on a plane that day to come to New York to be on TODAY. A first-class mind (he has a degree in mathematics) in a body confined to a wheelchair by a rare form of muscular dystrophy that has left him able to move little more than his thumbs, Carr has never been to New York; he’s never even left Colorado.

Was he ready to get on a plane?

“It’s gonna be tough,” he said brightly. But, he added, “I’m ready.”

‘Hidden hero’
Also ready are Carr’s parents, Thelma and Larry Carr, who care for their 38-year-old son selflessly and without complaint. Although immobile, Carr has total feeling in his body. An itch is every bit as annoying for him as for anyone else, but he can’t even scratch it. He can’t bathe or feed himself, or comb his hair or trim his dapper mustache.

But that wasn’t what Carr wanted Gifford and Kotb to know when he entered the “Everybody Has a Story” contest. Instead, using his thumbs to write on his computer, he told them about his father, his “hidden hero.”

“In direct defiance of physics, Mother Nature and the very idea of the aging process itself, Dad lifts me in his strong arms (arms that give more comfort and reassurance then even the embrace of an Angel would be able to provide) to bathe me, to care for me,” Carr wrote.

“A few years ago he left the hospital against doctor recommendation when suffering from the extreme pain of kidney stones, a pain many men would verify no regular human being could ignore ... why? So he could take care of his son,” Carr continued. “Our entire lives together are peppered with such stories of how love for and from his family allows him to endure and persevere.”

Larry Carr doesn’t think what he does is extraordinary, but his son knows the truth. “He truly does not understand the limitless depth of his heroism.” Lance Carr wrote. “If anyone brings up the subject he easily brushes the words of praise aside and says he could not do any differently because I am his son and he loves me ... spoken like a true hero.

“In a world where we look for role models and heroes in politicians, athletes or maybe something as silly as an entertainer, the daily demonstrations of heroism acted out by my Pops go unnoticed. If those who read this want to be heroic and change this world into a better place, they need do nothing more than emulate my dearest old Dad.”

No wonder that when Gifford introduced the segment, she turned to her sidekick Kotb and said, “I might have to lose it along the way here.”

Disability and discrimination
It was difficult for Gifford to talk about what Lance, a highly intelligent man with a teaching degree in math, goes through. “He suffers every day in ways we cannot even fathom,” she said. “This just kills you: He says he has never held a loved one in his arms in his life.”

Eleven years ago, Carr had earned a teaching certificate after completing his student teaching. But he was denied a job at Fort Morgan High School in Colorado. A jury determined that the school district discriminated against him because of his disability.

Since then, Carr has inspired engineering students at the Colorado State University to design a special gaming controller that can be used by people like himself with limited movement and dexterity. The controller was demonstrated just last June.

In presenting his idea to the engineering students, Carr had written of his belief in “the innate ability of a person to overcome obstacles through the merging of individual initiative with creativity, and the application of modern science and technology.”

When she finished talking to Lance Carr, Gifford asked, “Could I have a Kleenex, please?”

Tune in to TODAY Thursday to hear Kathie Lee Gifford put Lance Carr’s inspiring story to song.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26943618/