PERRYVILLE AREA YOUTH FINDS FAME AND ($178) IN TV APPEARANCES

PERRYVILLE -- If this keeps up, Tyson Koenig may have to hire an agent.

Tyson, 8, is trading his knowledge of presidential trivia for fame and fortune.

He appeared Monday night on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and on the "Today" show Tuesday morning with Bryant Gumbel.

When the Koenigs, who live at rural Perryville, returned from New York early Wednesday, they found requests for interviews and appearances from several other television and radio shows waiting, said Dianna Koenig, Tyson's mother.

"I don't know how many messages we had on the machine," she said. "My husband (Brian) and I just sat on the edge of the bed in a daze."

The "Maury Povich Show" contacted the family, as did several Chicago radio stations and stations from other cities.

Tyson is taking his newfound fame in stride.

"I think it was neat," he said. "I think it was very neat."

He said he probably will respond to the requests for interviews "if it's the right time that I can talk to them."

"He has to finish up his homework and get caught up with school," his mother said. "Then we're going to have to sit down and discuss what he's going interested in."

When a reporter kidded him about getting an agent, Tyson replied, "That's what the lady from the "Today" show said."

Tyson said his favorite segment so far came at the end of Tuesday's "Today" show broadcast, when he and Gumbel and Katie Couric sat talking together. "But hardly anybody saw it."

Many local stations broadcast local news at that time, rather than the "Today" show, his mother explained.

During his appearance on the Letterman show, Tyson was asked to identify several presidents from pictures or signatures.

He was also asked to identify dignitaries appearing on currency of different denominations, including Ben Franklin on the new $100 bill.

He got to keep the money.

At the end of the show when Letterman was summing up who the guests had been, he joked about Tyson receiving thousands of dollars in prize money.

"Tyson said, `I counted it. It was only $178,'" his mother said.

He also got to meet comedian Tim Allen, also a guest on Letterman that night.

Allyn Steffens, the principal of Immanuel Lutheran School where Tyson attends third grade, said students and staff were thrilled at Tyson's sudden celebrity status.

"It's just been a buzz around the school," Steffens said. "I've had strangers come up to me and start talking to me about, hasn't it been great that we have such a celebrity here?"

Tyson began memorizing facts about the presidents about two years ago after a special Presidents Day section in the Southeast Missourian caught his interest.

"We were commenting this morning that we didn't have that much to do with it, and one of the teachers said, `Yes, but we didn't squelch it,'" Steffens said.