LEWISTON – To Lenny Powers, Jerry Mathers is an icon.

Powers watched Mathers’ 1950s TV show “Leave It to Beaver” with his children. It was a wholesome show, he said, a show with values. He now watches the reruns with his wife, sometimes at 3:30 in the morning. He knows a lot of the episodes by heart.

“Everybody loves ‘Leave It to Beaver.’ It’s part of growing up,” Powers said. “It’s the ideal world under ideal circumstances.”

So when he learned that Mathers – “the Beaver” – would appear at Simones’ Hot Dog Stand in Lewiston Tuesday to raise awareness about diabetes and to sign autographs, Powers made sure he was there, even though it meant driving an hour from his home in Albany Township and waiting in a line that stretched out the restaurant’s door.

“Excellent program. Excellent,” he told Mathers when he reached the front of the line. Powers grasped the other man’s hand. “You’ve almost been a religion in my house.”

It was a sentiment echoed over and over Tuesday by fans of a hit TV show long canceled and of an idolized little boy long grown up.

“It’s very, very gratifying. I’m very blessed,” Mathers said as the Simones’ crowd cheered and applauded.

Mathers, 60, was 7 years old when he shot the pilot for “Leave It to Beaver,” playing Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver. He was 13 when the show wrapped up production in the early 1960s.

“Leave It to Beaver” reruns have proven so popular in this country and around the world that the show hasn’t been off the air since.

Mathers has remained an actor, most recently appearing on Broadway as a starring character in the Tony-winning musical “Hairspray.” He is also the father of three grown children.

Two years ago, Mathers was asked to help the Partnership for Prescription Assistance, a drug company-sponsored program that matches needy patients with assistance programs that can provide them with free or nearly free medications.

Two “Help is Here Express” buses tour the country to provide people with information. Mathers, who has diabetes, agreed to meet with fans and sign autographs at some of the buses’ stops to encourage people to come out and to raise awareness of diabetes.

In Bangor Tuesday morning, about 300 people showed up to meet Mathers. In Lewiston, 75 to 100 people lined up at Simones’.

“The phone’s been ringing off the hook all day,” said owner Jimmy Simones.

Children, baby boomers and community leaders began to arrive a half-hour early, crowding into the restaurant with digital cameras and cellphone cameras up and at the ready. They darted eager glances out the window until, shortly after 2 p.m., someone shouted, “There he is! There he is!”

When Mathers walked in, smiling and thanking the crowd, 6-year-old Autumn Brown waved and chirped, “Hi, Beave!”

She was one of the first to get an autographed photo of Mathers as a child. Her grandfather, Clay Beach, was with her.

“We had to come,” said Beach, who lives in Sabattus and grew up watching the show. “It’s Jerry, the Beaver.”

Auburn Mayor John Jenkins got his own photo soon after – signed in blue marker: “Your friend Jerry Mathers, ‘Beaver.'”

Jenkins wanted to talk with Partnership for Prescription Assistance about Auburn offering similar low-cost and no-cost prescription information to its citizens year-round. But the few minutes of conversation with Mathers?

“This is all for me,” he said. “This (show) is part of my childhood memories.”

For the crowd, it was a rare opportunity to meet their favorite TV star. For Mathers, it was two hours of handshakes, smiles and photographs.

But he loved doing it.

“The thing that’s gratifying to me is people who come here and say, ‘I never would have come here and heard about this program if you hadn’t been here,'” he said.

Mathers will return home to California, but the bus will continue in Maine Wednesday, stopping in Rumford from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Hannaford Supermarket on Waldo Street, and in Bridgton from 1 to 2:30 p.m at the Food City Supermarket on Main Street.

To get the best information about prescription programs available, visitors should bring an up-to-date list of their medications.

Information is also available at www.pparx.org or by calling 1-888-4PPA-NOW.