Former Lt. Gov. Dr. Lonnie Hammargren sits Tuesday in a sarcophagus beneath his Las Vegas house. Hammargren plans a funeral and memorial services while he is still alive. His arm rests on the iron lung in which he wants to be buried after he actually dies. Photo by John Locher.

At 3 p.m. March 31, a eulogy service is scheduled at Community Lutheran Church for Dr. Lonnie Hammargren, 69.

The only thing missing from the wake will be a corpse.

"I want to be awake for my wake," explained Hammargren, a retired neurosurgeon who largely made his living drilling into the heads of individuals whose brains were not operating properly. "I want to see the friends and family that I want to come to my funeral while I'm still alive."

The former Nevada lieutenant governor has an insatiable interest in extraterrestrial beings: He once greeted visitors to the rural town of Rachel with a hearty, "Good afternoon, earthlings."

Hammargren is perhaps best known for connecting three houses to create a 14,000-square-foot home/museum that holds a planetarium and observatory and thousands of artifacts.

The compound in southeastern Las Vegas includes a full size gondola, the grand entrance staircase that Liberace used at the Riviera, a roller coaster that used to be atop the Stratosphere and a life-size replica of a dinosaur.

Equally huge replicas of the Apollo Space Shuttle and Leonardo DaVinci's flying machine are prominently displayed. So is a painting of Hammargren in a Russian spacesuit.

A former regent to the university and college system of Nevada as well as a flight surgeon to the Apollo astronauts, Hammargren says he became aware of his own mortality in October when he needed six bypasses to correct a heart condition.

That medical necessity served as a catalyst for a living wake and party.

"But I'm not depressed," he said as he played with his mustache and then ran his hand through a shock of light brown hair. "I'm in superb physical condition today.

"I just see having this funeral as capturing my lust for life, of giving me a chance to really live in the now with the people I love and respect."

Dr. Al Campana, a neuro-surgeon who will deliver a eulogy during the church service, said he finds Hammargren's live wake less bizarre than his friend's earlier after-death wish.

"Lonnie had asked me to put his body in a long Tahitian canoe after he died and then set it afire on Lake Mead," Campana said. "I told him that I doubted authorities would ever go for it."

After the wake, Hammar-gren plans on participating in a mile-long traditional New Orleans funeral march from the East Tropicana Avenue church to his house for an invitation-only party.

The featured event of the evening?

Hammargren expects it will be his placement in an iron lung once used by polio patients. The iron lung will then briefly be placed underground inside an Egyptian sarcophagus, or coffin.

Such burial preparations seem to be of less concern to Hammargren, however, than entertainment during the New Orleans funeral march.

"I need musicians and dancers," said the Vietnam veteran who plays the piano, organ, guitar and accordion.

(Any musician or dancer wanting to partake in Hammargren's funeral march can call 451-8444 or 595-6669. Whomever Hammargren considers the best dancer, or stomper, will win $100.)

Using the jeweled white piano that Liberace carted all over the world for the boogie-woogie part of his concerts, Hammargren showed off the kind of up-tempo tunes he wants played for his live death celebration.

"I want people to dance on my grave," Hammargren said.

At the party, where guests will see Hammargren's round bed that is surrounded by carousel horses that actually rotate, will be some of the doctor's estimated 20,000 patients.

Glenn Treadwell and his wife Claire will be there with their daughter Stephanie, who was born with spina bifida.

"Dr. Hammargren saved Stephanie's life twice with his surgeries," Glenn Treadwell said. "He may be eccentric, but he's also a great doctor."

Hammargren's wife of nearly 20 years, Sandy Hammargren, was feverishly cleaning the grounds Monday in preparation for the upcoming funeral festivities.

On her hands and knees, she scrubbed underneath a stairway.

"Why are you cleaning what no one will ever see?" Lonnie Hammargren asked.

Though his muttering wife did not answer that question, she did share why she continues to work as a critical care nurse at Sunrise Hospital.

"I have to work to keep my sanity," she said. "My husband gets up at five in the morning, and he's always got to be building something or doing some project.

"I need to deal with normal people once in awhile."