It's peak season for "Airport Marcy."

All hours of the day, Little Canada resident Marcy Werness can be found waiting at baggage carousel 9, United Airlines, with her Youth for Understanding sign and a smile on her face. She waits with Minnesota host families for their foreign exchange students to arrive.

It started 30 years ago, when miscommunication stranded Marcy's first exchange student from Germany at the airport. Werness said she was painting her visiting "son's" room when she got a phone call from him. "Hello? I'm here," he said.

Werness thought her husband would be there to welcome their student. They laugh about it now, and when their former student calls he still greets them with, "Hello, I'm here," as a joke.

When she retired 15 years ago, she volunteered to help coordinate greetings at the airport to make sure no visiting student ever again was left without a hearty Minnesota welcome.

"My husband says, 'When the first of August comes, that's it, I'm not going to see Marcy for a month,'" she said. One night this month, her husband joined her at the airport until 2 a.m., just to spend time with her.

More than 160 students will arrive in Minnesota this month, and it's Werness' goal to greet each and every one. The first students arrived last week, hailing from Brazil, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland.

"Her passion for what she does is what makes her so unique," said Robyn Lee-Dobbs, local field director for the international exchange program headquartered in Bethesda, Md. "It's contagious when she talks to the families."

Because of the economy, Werness said the program is having a harder time finding families to host exchange students. Dobbs said Youth for Understanding is still looking for host families in the east metro and outstate Minnesota for the upcoming school year.

In the past, students and families were connected months in advance. One family waiting with Werness last Wednesday had gotten just three days' notice of their match with a student arriving from Norway.

Jenny Wells, of St. Anthony, wanted to be sure her student knew who her host mother was. At the baggage claim with Werness and two other families, Wells held up an enlarged photo of her exchange student. Her mother, Dorothy Kiner, held up a Norwegian flag. "If she doesn't know she belongs with us, then we're in trouble," Wells said, laughing.

Wells said that when she was an exchange student in 1984, the lag time between mailing photos and connecting with her host family in South Africa was weeks. Now a host, she said she was able to connect with her student via e-mail.

"The students don't realize that the families are just as nervous as they are," Werness said.

The families last Wednesday came prepared: brightly colored signs, balloons (issued from Youth for Understanding, pink for "It's a girl!"), and one host "father" who wore his American flag shirt. Nic and Kjerstin Meyer, from Litchfield, retrieved their "sister's" bag from the carousel before she had even arrived.

Werness helps connect families that are waiting for students on the same flight, and also helps troubleshoot when a family is late or unable to meet a student when he or she arrives.

One student a couple of years back didn't know that her host family would meet her at the airport and was heading to hail a taxi, Werness said. "She thought she would go to them," she said.

Other times, a student may miss a connecting flight to Sioux Falls or another neighboring airport. "They tell the kids to go to [baggage carousel] 9 and meet Marcy," she said.

Some days, hours pass between arrivals. Werness brings a book to pass the time. She's 73, and every year she claims it will be her last. That is, until she gets the next call, asking if she'll be at the airport.

"Everyone needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning, a passion," she said. "If I wasn't doing this, what would I be doing?"

Emma L. Carew • 612-673-4154