National tour ready to collect Chattanooga’s ‘aha moments’

Sometimes an “aha moment” comes when you are running a drill press in Omaha and decide suddenly to go to college.

Sometimes it happens in Northern California, when your 5-year-old son asks for money for his birthday so he can donate to an animal shelter.

Whatever aha moments Chattanooga residents have had, a group coming to town next week wants to capture them. The Scenic City is one of 25 stops on the aha moment tour, which will be filming at the Choo-Choo on Thursday and Friday.

“Anybody who has a moment they would like to share with us, we would love it,” said tour manager Katie Kirby, who was in Springfield, Mo., for a recent tour stop.

The four-person crew and its rolling studio in an Airstream camper are traveling the country interviewing people about their flashes of insight, moments of clarity or realizations they call “aha moments.” Excerpts from the interviews will be posted on ahamoment.com, and some will air on the tour’s television commercials.

“It’s really to encourage ideas and celebrate the life-changing moments people have in their lives,” said Jim Nolan, a spokesman for the tour and its sponsor, Mutual of Omaha.

The moments range from spiritual realizations to life-changing decisions and funny, everyday occurrences, Mr. Nolan said. The commercial spots have told stories of longtime friends getting engaged, unemployed people starting new careers and one woman who decided to go to pastry school and launch a cupcake brand.

“All of those people on the TV commercials, those aren’t actors, those are just regular people like the folks who will be coming out in Chattanooga,” Mr. Nolan said.