Volume 3, No. 5. March 14, 2003
Dream
on
It might come down
to money, as it usually does. However, the significant factor in the Save Dreamland
Campaign, an effort to preserve the seaside amusement park in Margate, England,
is that the issue of land value is being presented in a powerful new paradigm.
Rather than looking at the value of said property to one entity, the campaigners
are casting the debate as the value of that property to the entire community.
We’re talking financial value, too, not merely nostalgia or image.
For one, it helps to have a planning consultant as your campaign leader. “I
wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was worth it,” said
Nick Laister, a technical director at RPS Planning, Transport and Environment,
the United Kingdom’s largest planning consultancy firm. “I’m
involved in this kind of thing all the time. I know when something isn’t
worth fighting for.”
Laister, an amusement historian and editor of www.joylandbooks.com,
was instrumental in getting Dreamland’s Scenic Railway, Britain’s
oldest coaster, listed as a historic structure last year. When news broke in
January that Jimmy Godden was selling his two parks, Dreamland and Rotunda in
Folkestone, to developers who would turn the sites into retail centers and housing,
enthusiasts naturally recruited Laister to head up the campaign to save the
parks.
Laister determined Rotunda, even with its 1922 side friction Runaway Coaster,
could not be saved, though all of its rides are on the market, including the
Runaway. “Folkestone doesn’t see themselves as a seaside resort,”
Laister said. “There’s no desire to see an amusement park remaining.
That’s what the local people want, so there’s no point in pushing
against that.”
In Margate, Laister said, “We know the people are behind us.” As are
local businesses. “A lot of the major organizations in town, the civic
society, historical societies, the hotel and bed and breakfast operators support
us.” Laister therefore is using the planning and land use process to press
the campaign’s case that a reinvested amusement park would bring more dollars
to Margate than would “retail boxes and a supermarket.”
As recently as December, Margate's governing body, the Thanet District Council,
endorsed an amusement venue as the best use of the property. That changed a
month later when Godden and the development firm he intended to sell to presented
their redevelopment plan. While the Council did not accept the plan, it did
reverse its position on the property’s land use, swayed by Godden’s
argument that an amusement park was not viable there. Godden, who purchased
the properties in 1995, has publicly said he is selling the parks so he can
retire; efforts by THE LOOP to reach him for this story were not successful.
The Save Dreamland Campaign claims that a park would be viable, if run properly.
“We don’t think there has been a real commitment to keep it running,”
Laister said. “It isn’t a very attractive park anymore. The best rides
have been taken out, there’s been very little promotion, they have no web
site.” Laister does not believe Dreamland Fun Park could operate on a scale
of Blackpool's Pleasure Beach or Thorpe Park, but it would operate on a scale
suitable to Margate, which has considerable pull from London. “I’ve
had numerous e-mails and letters and telephone calls from London,” said
Laister, who said all the metropolitan newspapers have been covering the fate
of Dreamland. “So many talk about how the Scenic Railway was their
first coaster, and also their mum and dad’s first coaster.”
Dreamland
was even on the mind of Roger Moore of James Bond fame when he attended the
IAAPA Trade Show in November. Pushing his UNICEF agenda, Moore cited his childhood
visits to Dreamland as instigating his lifelong love of the amusement and entertainment
industry (THE LOOP, November
26, 2002).
The Scenic Railway, particularly its listed status, is the linchpin to
the campaign’s plans. The listing does not prevent its demolition, but
the property owner and governing body must exhaust efforts to legitimately save
the structure. That could mean finding a buyer willing to keep the structure.
No amusement venue operator could pay what the developers are willing to pay,
and Godden naturally wants to maximize the value of the site. However, if the
Council denies a change in the land use, “then the property becomes affordable”
for an operator, Laister said.
“We see our role as talking to decision makers and planners to say, ‘This
is not best for Margate,’” Laister said of the redevelopment plans.
“National policy and local policy prefer an amusement park there, and the
Council leader has said the best thing we can do is bring an operator to take
it on.” Laister said “a number of operators” have expressed interest
in taking over the site and investing in rebuilding Dreamland, and at least
one is taking serious steps toward making a bid.
Meanwhile, the Save Dreamland Campaign is marshaling a show of public support
with a Save Dreamland Convention cosponsored by the European Coaster Club. Originally
scheduled for April 19, the event has been moved to June 1 allowing the organizers
to improve the program, which will include various speakers and films at Margate’s
Theatre Royal and several other events. For more information, visit the campaign’s
web site, www.savedreamland.co.uk.
Naming rights
So, you want to
name your baby gorilla. You want to get the public involved in selecting the
name. You want to use the naming contest to prompt inquiries into your conservation
and education programs, not to mention your zoo. Oh, and a major media empire
at the same time wants to launch a new zoo feature for its customers.
Here is an equation for success: The Bronx Zoo plus America On Line equals 441,000
individual votes. Of that number, 33 percent liked Zola for the zoo’s newest
Congo Gorilla Forest resident. “Zola” outpaced “Juma” (25
percent), “Kuchimba” (21 percent), “Njoku” (14 percent)
and “Matunde” (7 percent). The most important figure, however, was
12 percent; that’s the percentage of those 441,000 voters who clicked through
the AOL page to the Bronx Zoo’s own web site, a total of some 54,000 visitors.
Zola is Swahili for “quietness,” but her naming was anything but quiet,
thanks to the Wildlife Conservation Society’s partnership with AOL. The
Society, which owns the Bronx Zoo and other New York City zoos and aquariums,
began working with AOL a year ago to provide a series of photo essays for the
web host’s Research & Learn Channel. “It was doing fine, but wasn’t
having the breakthrough we wanted,” said Julia Mair, vice president for
TV and media at the Bronx Zoo. “We started talking about ways we could
introduce audiences to the Bronx Zoo, ways suited to AOL, which has immediacy,
fluidity and interactivity. We started talking about regular features tied to
days and dates.”
The first opportunity came when Tuti gave birth on November 1 in Congo Gorilla
Forest (silverback Zuri is the father). AOL posted pictures of the baby gorilla
on its Welcome Screen and on its Research & Learn Channel with an invitation
to vote for her name and an opportunity to learn more about gorilla conservation
and Congo Gorilla Forest. The campaign started February 28 and concluded Monday.
“To offer this contest was a great opportunity for both parties, and for
AOL members to name an animal was an opportunity usually reserved for donors,”
said Elizabeth Cleary, senior programming manager for the Research & Learn
Channel at AOL. Mair was surprised at the response, though she immediately pinpointed
the reason for the campaign’s success. “Why did it work? Because we
have a photographer, Dennis DeMello, whose photographs were just fantastic.”
Cleary said she expected the high click-through rate. “I just know how
much AOL members love animals,” she said. “Who can resist the picture
of Zola that we had up? We were certain AOL members couldn’t.”
That love of animals among its membership has prompted Cleary to launch a new
feature—the Zola vote being the first installment—called “What’s
New @ The Zoo.” Though developed in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation
Society, it will feature other zoos, Cleary said. “We started this feature
to bring the delight of zoos to AOL members,” she said. “We plan to
bring baby animals and new exhibits that will make you feel like you are walking
through the zoo.” The feature will be regularly promoted on the Welcome
screen “based on the response we’ve seen,” Cleary said, and will
reside on the Research & Learn Channel.
Aside from learning a little gorilla lore through the naming campaign, AOL members
also got a lesson in Swahili, as all the nominated nomenclatures were translated
from Swahili to English: “Juma” is “born on a Friday,” “Kuchimba”
is Doug (the baby’s caretaker), “Njoku” is yams (the baby’s
favorite food) and “Matunde” means fruit. Zola, therefore, is greatly
indebted to AOL’s membership; had the vote resulted in “Matunde”
Zola would have been hereafter known as Tuti’s Fruit.
Landing a
big one
Bob Masterson, the
CEO of Ripley Entertainment Inc., claims he still ended up paying part of the
purchase price of the Ocean Journey aquarium in Denver, Colorado, even though
his company lost out to a bid by Landry’s Restaurants Inc. “I’m
a big fan of their restaurants," Masterson said after the restaurant chain’s
CEO and president Tilman J. Fertitta outbid him in a bankruptcy court hearing
March 4. "Some of that $13.6 million they paid came out of my wallet for
as much as I’ve eaten at their restaurants.”
After Ripley announced a bid of $4.5 million for the bankrupt aquarium (THE
LOOP, February 14, 2003), Fertitta showed up at the March 4 hearing with
a $4.6 million bid. The two CEO’s then fired off competing numbers in $100,000
increments until the price tag reached $13.6 million, whereupon Masterson bowed
out (see story in Extra!
Extra!).
“I think I probably made a mistake going as high as I went,” Masterson
said. “The number we put in was not a low-ball number, it was a real number.
It’s what we thought should be paid for that facility. We know what makes
sense for us from a spending standpoint.” He questions the wisdom of Landry's
bid and its plans to spend another $15 million in improvements on the troubled
Ocean Journey; but he concedes that Landry's "is a well run company"
and would be one of the few operations capable of recouping so much investment.
However, even Fertitta is questioning his own bid. “We didn’t want
to go as high as we did,” he said. “But we think we can make it work
putting in our restaurant. In Denver there’s 2.5 million people in the
metropolitan area. We think we can make it interesting enough to capture the
tourist dollar, the convention dollar and the local dollar.”
As
it has done with its new Downtown Aquarium in Houston (THE
LOOP, February 28, 2003), Landry’s plans to install an Aquarium Restaurant
on Ocean Journey’s ground floor. “If we can make it work we’ll
try to put the Marina Matinee Cafe in, too,” Fertitta said, referring to
a new concept eatery his company introduced at the Houston aquarium featuring
booths as boats moored to docks.
In addition to the restaurants, Landry’s plans to expand the exhibits,
build a highly themed retail outlet a la the company’s Rainforest Cafe
concept, and add some amusement rides to the property, again using the Houston
aquarium as its model. A primary difference between the Houston property and
Ocean Journey is location; Houston’s lies in the theater district, Denver's
sits adjacent to Six Flags Elitch Gardens. “I think the customer that’s
coming to us isn’t necessarily the ones going to Six Flags,” Fertitta
said, adding that the aquarium’s rides would be more “family oriented”
than those next door.
One thing that emerged out of the bidding war for Denver’s aquarium is
the likelihood that this may not be the last time these two companies square
off over existing public aquarium facilities. “Because we lose one doesn’t
mean we lose them all,” Masterson said. The company already is developing
an aquarium as part of a new, multi-gated property in San Diego, California.
It has had discussions with the New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden “though
that’s a real long shot for us,” Masterson said, and it is “looking
at non-profits that are having some trouble.” He said Ripley might land
an aquarium “before the end of this season.”
Meanwhile, Fertitta is already looking beyond Denver’s venture. “Surely
we’ll look at any public aquarium that’s available,” he said.
“This thing (in Denver) was run as a nonprofit, and just being there in
the first few days we can already see a difference in operations.”
A century
of fun
First, a prelude.
Eight years ago, Thad Lacinak, the corporate curator of animal training for
Busch Entertainment, was waiting at the Orlando, Florida, International Airport
for his grandmother, Corrine Luken, to disembark the airliner from her home
in Cincinnati, Ohio. The plane apparently emptied, she had yet to emerge. Then,
here she came helping another elderly woman walk up the skyway. “Who is
your friend?” Lacinak asked. “I don’t know her, but, the poor
old thing, she could hardly walk,” Luken replied. Astonished, Lacinak asked
his grandmother the age of the other woman, and she replied “I think around
70.” Which would mean Luken was 22 years older than the “poor old
thing” she was assisting.
And now Luken is 100, and for her century birthday last Friday she became the
oldest person to participate in SeaWorld Orlando’s false killer whale interaction
program. “The oldest we’ve had before that was, like, 80, so she beat
the record by 20 years,” Lacinak said. It was his idea to offer the gift
to his grandmother. She proudly has followed his 30-year career with the SeaWorld
parks ever since he was an apprentice trainer back when Luken was just 70. “I
think where I got my desire to work with animals was somehow inherently from
her. She’s always loved animals.”
Still, she was a little leery of doing the interactive program at first, especially
when her grandson said it would put her in the water with a false killer whale.
“I’m not getting in with a killer whale!” she retorted. When
Lacinak explained the difference between the Shamu-famous orca and the pseudorca
of the interactive program, she agreed on one condition: that Lacinak himself
accompany her in the water.
They found an extra extra small wet suit for her, and she wore a Lycra suit
underneath to help slide the wet suit on—not that she needed any such help.
“She was in it in no time; next thing we know she’s standing out there
waiting for us,” Lacinak said. She waded into the 74-degree-water, the
whale swam up with its mouth open and she fed and petted the creature. She also
got to feed and pose with the real killer whales. The staff of trainers joined
in the occasion by presenting her a booklet containing pictures from the day,
and one trainer, Randy White, modified a poem he had written for his own grandmother—who
died before he was able to give it to her—and included the verses in Luken’s
keepsake book.
Lacinak said the pseudorca was a perfect animal for the interaction program
with his grandmother because it is so unique and gentle. “Who knows, for
her 101st birthday maybe we’ll do the dolphins at Discovery Cove.”
New Arrivals
It’s
twin shows!
Old
Tucson Studios in Tucson, Arizona, announces the arrival of The Three Amigos
Ride Again! and Western Movie Magic, March 7, 2003. Measurements:
nine professional actors/dancers/singers/stunt performers, four technicians,
three horses and two park guests.
The measurements above tell only two-tenths of the story. The stunt show Three
Amigos Ride Again! and the special effects, live/video, audience participation
show Western Movie Magic are the last two—and most ambitious—of
six new shows to open at Old Tucson over the past four weeks. Combined with
four shows held over from the winter season, that’s 10 shows a day utilizing
the same nine performers in various guises and talents.
The only stage show repeated twice during the day is Western Movie Magic
in the park’s Grand Palace Saloon, but at least the cast and crew get a
little help from a phantom participant and two audience members. Old Tucson
is a former working studio where more than 400 movies and television shows were
filmed, and as a theme park it remains famous for its stuntmen in street gunfights
and saloon girls in cancan lines. Western Movie Magic is revolutionary
for the park in weaving Old Tucson’s history and current acting team into
a visual feast for today’s park guests.
After a video of Old Tucson-set scenes from a dozen Hollywood movies—beginning
with 1940’s Arizona, running through Young Guns II and ending
with 1994’s Lightning Jack—the cowboys and saloon girls dance
into the saloon to a honky-tonk tune. A bartender, sparring with a piano-playing,
door-slamming, gun-shooting ghost, gives a few quick stories of John Wayne,
Michael Landon and other stars who filmed extensively at the park. The barkeep
then turns the floor over to a 1930’s style Hollywood director who premiers
a new film which uses green-screen technology to fuse two of that day’s
park guests into a film starring Old Tucson’s current staff. The film,
"Dumb Guns," is so full of punning pot shots at famous movie scenes
and lines, one 30-second speech is comprised almost entirely of 18 famous film
titles. The two guest stars get to keep a copy of their movie after its exclusive
showing in the saloon.
“One of our plans is to do more shows using movies that have been filmed
here,” said David Girton, Old Tucson’s vice president of operations
and general manager. “That’s what the people want, and it’s going
back to our roots.” The new slate of shows is the first time the park has
taken such a tact, with a stunt show based on characters from TV’s The
High Chaparral filmed at Old Tucson in the 1960s, and another stunt show,
The Great Tucson Bank Robbery that is actually a reprise of a street
show at the park featured in the 1974 Charles Bronson film Death Wish.
The Three Amigos Ride Again! is the latest example, a stunt show reprise
of the 1986 Steve Martin-Martin Short-Chevy Chase movie featuring three bandits,
three horses, three women and, of course, the Three Amigos dressed in authentic-looking
mariachi-style Three Amigos wear. “It’s a great comedy we thought
we could use to show off our stunts,” Girton said. And one thing this stunt
show has that few other movie-based stunt shows can claim: this one is presented
at the same location as the movie that inspired it was shot.
Amigos’ debut last Friday under desert-blue skies had some misfiring
microphones, but the humor, action and acting elicited a steady string of giggling
from an audience representing the whole demographic gamut. The same day, Western
Movie Magic’s two first-day showings also endured a few technological
glitches, but “Dumb Guns” itself instantly entered the annals of one
of the funniest films ever filmed at Old Tucson Studios, based on the first
audience’s reaction.
In that Girton has accomplished more than he set out to do; he not only brought
Old Tucson lore to the fore of his stage shows, he made Old Tucson history with
the stage shows themselves.
It’s
a waterpark!
Wilderness Hotel & Golf Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, announces
the arrival of the Wild West Waterpark, February 28, 2003. Measurements: 70,000
square feet (6,503 square meters), one 500-foot-long (152-meter-long) family
raft slide with five-person rafts, one six level play structure with 750-gallon
(2,839-liter) tipping bucket and 100 interactive play devices, and one interactive
wave pool with 20 water blasters and 10 geysers. Delivered by Badger Pools,
National Rock & Sculpture, NBGS International, ProSlide Technology, Pro
Tile, Stevens Construction, WaveTek and Wizard Works.
The resort was sold out for the weekend. All 443 hotel rooms and the 150 condominiums,
cabins and villas had been booked from Friday evening, February 28, through
Sunday, March 2. If that didn’t convince Joe Eck, director of sales and
marketing at Wilderness Resort, that his new waterpark was going to make a further
impact on the resort’s occupancy, the fact that Thursday night, February
27, sold out, too, was final proof.
“People wanted a pass (to the new waterpark) for the next day,” Eck
said. “There’s no other explanation as to why we would sell out a
Thursday night.” The new waterpark, Wilderness’ third indoor waterpark,
had generated about six weeks of publicity prior to its scheduled opening, but
the resort’s waterparks are available only to resort guests. Wilderness
officials had planned to open Wild West at 4 p.m. (16,00) in conjunction with
that Friday evening’s guest check-in. But with the Thursday night bookings,
the resort moved up the opening time to noon on Friday.
Good thing. Guests waiting to get in lined up from the waterpark’s door
down the hallway, a line estimated at “probably a quarter of a mile,”
Eck said. “We’ve never had a line before.”
They’ve never had a waterpark quite like this one before, either. The ProSlide
five-person raft slide, called The Fantastic Voyage, drew everybody’s
attention as soon as they entered the park. After taking a spin down Voyage,
the guests generally headed for Ransack Ridge, NBGS’s largest such
play structure.
What guests then discovered was the park’s true gem. In the Wisconsin Dells’
year-round competition of one-upmanship among the resorts, Wilderness has scored
big with The Surge, the only indoor, interactive wave pool. On each side
of the wave pool stand 10 water blasters that pedestrians use to shoot streams
of water at swimmers. TNT boxes on the deck trigger geysers located throughout
the wave pool. “It’s your chance to squirt your brother or knock him
out of the tube,” Eck said.
Wild West also gives Wilderness the Dells’ total indoor waterpark square
footage title; the new park’s 70,000 square feet combined with the resort’s
two other indoor aquatic centers makes for a total of 157,000 square feet (13,935
square meters) of indoor waterplay area.
It’s
a waterpark!
Scott Enterprises in Erie, Pennsylvania, announces the arrival of Splash Lagoon,
February 28, 2003. Measurements: 77,000 square feet (7,154 square meters) total
containing a 45,000-square-foot (4,181-square-meter) waterpark featuring five-story,
12 level play structure with 48-foot-tall (15-meter-tall), 1,000-gallon (3,785-liter)
tipping bucket, seven slides, two 50-person whirlpools, a 300-foot (91-meter)
lazy river, an 80,000 gallon (302,833-liter) activity pool, one grill and one
bar; a 6,500-square-foot (604-square meter) arcade with 110 games; a 3,000-square-foot
(279-square-meter) private party room with a capacity of up to 250 people; one
gift shop and two macaws. Delivered by Aquatic Pools & Construction, Bob
Banks, National Rock & Sculpture, Neptune-Benson, Optic Nerve Art Corporation,
ProSlide Technology, Pro Tile, Rock Images, SCS Interactive, Water Technology,
Weber Murphy Fox Architects, Wizard Works and Zebec.
The temperature was 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 Celsius). Snow was falling.
What else is new in this Lake Erie shore city in February? A place to swim.
“People in Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Cleveland are coming to Erie in March,
and that’s not typical,” said Nick Scott Jr., who with his brother
Chris and their father Nick Scott Sr. own several hotel and restaurant franchises
under the Scott Enterprises umbrella. “They’re making the trip to
Erie, Pennsylvania, in the dead of winter for the weekend.” They’re
making that trip because of Splash Lagoon, an $18.5 million waterpark the Scotts
built adjoining three of their hotels—a Comfort Inn, a Residence Inn by
Marriott and a Holiday Inn Express, the last opening 10 months ago in anticipation
of the waterpark’s debut.
The Scotts once owned an outdoor waterpark in Erie, but they didn’t like
the four-month season and the vagaries of Erie’s weather. “When you
depend on Mother Nature, it’s a risky endeavor,” Scott said. “That’s
why we decided to take that element of risk out of the equation and go indoor.
We call it vacation insurance.”
The sentiment would have served well in its own right, but the Scotts went a
lot further with their new venture. They placed a lot of care in the theming,
trying to emulate the getaway feel of a South Pacific desert isle. Of particular
note are the wall murals custom painted for Splash Lagoon by Optic Nerve Art
Corporation of Columbus, Ohio, depicting volcanic landscapes and tropical sealife.
The Scotts supplemented the standard collection of slides with two ProSlide
bowls, the body-slide Hurricane Hole and the tube-slide Cyclone,
the latter proving to be the park’s most popular attraction among guests
in the first two weeks. The Tiki Tree House has a tipping bucket, but
this one alternates the action, pouring its 1,000 gallons down into the play
area then, three minutes later, tipping backward into The Cyclone. “If
you time it right in The Cyclone, you just might get a little extra amenity,
a little added excitement,” Scott said.
Splash Lagoon even has its own set of costumed mascots, DJ, Lola and Joey, with
DJ the monkey playing a central role in the opening ceremonies. The Scotts used
a VIP party on the eve of the public opening for the park’s ribbon cutting
as 2,000 invited guests enjoyed a buffet, tropical music, hula dancers, a fire
eater and 120 kids demonstrating the various attractions. DJ mingled among the
crowd before heading up the slide structure and riding down the 350 foot-long
(107-meter-long) Big Kahuna tube slide, breaking through a ribbon at
the bottom. Then DJ joined the emcee and removed his mascot head, revealing
himself to be Nick Scott Sr. (he had switched places with the real DJ at the
top of the slide tower). The Scotts then invited the kids to join them in another
ribbon cutting ceremony at the foot of the tree house. Scissoring that ribbon
triggered the tipping bucket, dousing the crowd and queuing the band to play
“Cheeseburger in Paradise.”
An apropos choice. Here you can get a cheeseburger in paradise, a paradise in
Erie.
Hitting
10
This past week we put the finishing touches on the web site for Minton Enterprises,
www.ericminton.com.
We completed loading the sample articles and we added an index of every article
I’ve had published since my college days, which currently numbers 1,066
stories.
This index, mind you, has been an ongoing—and growing—list since I
began my full-time freelance writing career about 20 years ago. But while looking
over the list before posting it this week, I discovered an item that allows
us to mark an important anniversary. That item ran in the “2nd Quarter
1993” issue of Family Entertainment Center magazine, an article
on batting cages titled, “Who’s On First? A better question may be,
‘Who’s in first?’ as facilities with batting cages and pitching
machines—buoyed by the increased interest in baseball and softball of the
1980s—are finding themselves ahead of the competition.” My wife shot
the photo above for the article; you may not be able to make me out, but I'm
the big kid the fourth cage over.
Family Entertainment Center magazine, now defunct, was published by the
International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, and this article
was my first assignment from then publications vice president Rick Henderson.
It was my first ever amusement industry article. My specialty at the time was
the Americans with Disabilities Act and I had blindly queried Rick about doing
an article on that law for Funworld. Rick replied that the magazine had
already done such an article, but he liked my writing samples and asked, “What
do you know about batting cages?” From disability law to batting cages?
But, hey, I’m a big baseball fan, I frequented batting cages every chance
I could, and I wasn’t going to pass up being paid to do so.
Within a couple of years I had become a regular contributor to both Funworld
and Family Entertainment Center en route to an eight-year relationship
with IAAPA’s publications that ultimately led to my creation of THE LOOP.
I guess you could say that 10 years ago I first dabbled in the drug called the
amusement industry and I’ve been addicted ever since.
I’m not the only one, I must add. Also on my article index is a group of
articles published in the late 1980s for a magazine called Pizza Today.
For awhile that publication was one of my favorite markets, not just because
it allowed me to visit various pizza places—and get paid to do so—but
because I liked the editors at the magazine. One of those editors, Paula Werne,
left Pizza Today to become the public relations director at Holiday World
& Splashin’ Safari in Santa Claus, Indiana. She’s been there now
for more than 10 years.
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
All rights reserved