Alan Dahl wrote:
>
> Still I think the idea is worth pursuing. Perhaps National should pick
> some big, most likely east coast Pro near a major population center, set
> up a few grandstands, hire a professional announcer ("Let's get ready to
> Solo!"), put out a few radio ads and see if anyone comes.
Actually, Alan, we did something very similar here in Shreveport back in
1988 and 89 - back when the Pro Solo program was still in its infancy.
We hosted events two years in a row at the Louisiana State Fairgrounds -
the first when T. C. Cline was still coordinating the program and the
second after Howard succeeded him. At the time, the old racetrack
grandstands were still in place and made for an excellent spectator
vantage point.
We had both pre- and post-event coverage in the newspaper, on my two
radio stations, and on all three local TV stations. On the Friday
evening prior to the 1988 event, I personally took T.C. around to all
three of the TV stations for live interviews. I also did live
interviews myself during the preceding week. In 1989, I used some of
our members who had competed the year before to do the live interviews.
I even lined up Miss Louisiana to sing the National Anthem to get things
off and rolling Saturday morning.
The end result was that over the course of the weekend we had several
hundred people stop by to watch. We may not have hit Dennis' magic 1000
number but, bear in mind, this is Shreveport, Louisiana - population, at
the time, about 200,000 plus another 50,000 across the river in Bossier
City and maybe a total MSA of 350,000. Now, granted, this was 13 or 14
years ago when there weren't nearly as many other activities in the area
vying for people's time. But still I think it shows that it CAN be
done.
I have in our club archives a letter dated August 1989 and signed by
Howard, Tasha, and Dick Bonheim (remember him?!?) thanking Red River
Region for puting on such a successful event. And this was a region
which, at the time, had maybe 120 members!
John (Old Fartz & TLS #37) Lieberman
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