 Clare
B. Richardson1 ,
2 , 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8,
9, 10,
11, 12,
13, 14,
15, 16,
17, 18
| By this time John Lovett of the Sentinel-Record
was growing tired of the articles and the life of its own the Dairy Queen story
was taking on, so was anxious to put an end to the story with a half page article
in the Arts, etc. section of the Sentinel-Record on November 10, 2003 entitled
"DQ mystery final chapter reveals fate of Curly." The article featured a picture
of the mechanical "Curly the Clown" as he appears today when placed back at his
original location and surrounded by about 10 people who were either employees
of Rainbow Realty or the present day Dairy Queen. In the article he summarizes
the "trilogy" of the two other articles he published combined with this one as
a "final chapter" to conclude the story with the emphasis on the word final. |
|
By now other things were in the works. I had made 8" x 11 ½" computer generated
photographs with captions of my visit to Hot Springs and the site as it appears
today along with copies of the three Hot Springs articles for Jack Lu, the owner
of the Chino Hills Dairy Queen. He laminated the first Hot Springs articles and
all the pictures and they are all in his window, even today, for everyone to read.
Jack thought it was funny that his store is also on a street named "Grand." I
contacted my local Chino, California paper and they ran a very accurate but concise
story in the Chino Hills Champion on January 3, 2004 and the following week, January
10, 2004, the same newspaper publisher ran almost the same article in their sister
paper the Chino Champion. The two articles were both playfully titled "Off-the-wall"
project, which accurately described this adventure beginning from the mural on
the wall in the Chino Hills Dairy Queen. Jack Lu did not post the local newspaper
articles but instead favored the Hot Springs articles in his store windows because
they were from so far away. He thought they would be of more interest and everyone
probably would have seen the local articles. I found it humorous one night to
see a customer gazing at the captioned photographs that were posted in the Dairy
Queen window. I introduced myself. He said he thought the pictures were about
local houses for sale and hadn't really gotten into reading the captions. But
he really enjoyed hearing first hand the story behind the pictures. |
|
Meanwhile International Dairy Queen had already used the famous picture for their
2003 national convention of franchise holders held in Orlando, Florida on one
of a set of four coasters. The other coasters showed other historic Dairy Queen
pictures from other locations. By January, 2004 Dairy Queen had rolled out its
salute to the 100th anniversary of the ice cream cone featuring every ice cream
cone, regardless of cone size, wrapped in a graphic 100th anniversary paper wrap.
The ice cream cone was first introduced to the world at the St. Louis World's
Fair in 1904. Along with that 100th anniversary theme, they supported the promotional
campaign with a 24" x 28" nostalgic color poster. There are black and white pictures
showing the origins of Dairy Queen operations and soft serve ice cream. Across
the entire bottom of that poster is the same Hot Springs photograph used to create
the mural and it reads "Business boomed in 1953 as people from all corners of
Hot Springs, Ark. flocked to get a delicious taste of the fresh and delicious
treat." The information for the caption about Hot Springs and the year being 1953
were obviously from what I had provided. The posters were distributed nationwide
however each store selects only what posters it will use. Often only the new products
or seasonal promotions posters are used as that is all there is space for in any
one store. The 100th anniversary poster is a nice one for those who appreciate
the nostalgia and it does match the ice cream cone wrapping of every cone but
because of space and overall interest, probably many of the stores nationwide
did not display it. By my best estimate some 500 or more stores did. Now many
more stores and customers that never saw the huge mural of the original photograph
were now exposed to it as a smaller poster version. In my travels in 2004, I found
the poster first in my own Chino Hills, California store, then in the north Roswell,
New Mexico outlet near an alien-themed Wal-Mart. (Wonder if Dairy Queen ice cream
is an alien's favorite treat and does the product line really have universal appeal?)
I then found it on Route 66 in Williams, Arizona in an original classic store.
After that I found it in Anderson, South Carolina, Mitchell, Indiana, Neodesha,
Kansas, Durango, Colorado, Aztec, New Mexico, Tallahassee, Florida, and the Louisiana
St. store in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I probably run into it in about one of every
six or seven DQ stores I visit. |
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