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Date:
January 2003
• We recently
made a new
internet friend in Chef James. For all you food lovers out
there,
check out his web site www.foodreference.com
today!
Date:
January, 2003
• The good
folks at Hampton
Inns have included our Catsup bottle Summerfest in their new events
calendar.
It's titled "Hampton's Year of 1,000 Weekends" - A
one-of-a-kind
Travel Guide and Weekend Activities Calendar. We love Hampton Inns and
their efforts to help preserve and promote Route 66 and historic
landmarks
around the country. Thanks, guys!
Date:
January, 2003
• This was a
pleasant surprise.
While checking out at our local downtown drug store, we discovered the
new Wunnenberg's Street Guide for Madison County features the
Catsup
bottle on the cover!
 Date:
January 13, 2003
• Mel Schlemer
stopped by
the office and brought us this great old picture that we are thrilled
to
add to our archives. In it a young Mr. Schlemer presents the Future
Farmers of America's 1952 Certificate of Appreciation to Charles
Suppiger,
V.P. of the G.S. Suppiger Company.
Date:
January 2003
•
Congratulations go out
to our long-time Catsup Bottle Buddy, Mr. Jamie Jensen. The 3rd
edition of his book "Road Trip USA" has recently been published. Way
to go, Jamie! It's a great book that covers great road trips like
Route
66, U.S. 50, the Great River Road, the Lincoln Highway, and more.
Of course,
our favorite part is the inside back cover flap with the photo
of the
author
and the Catsup Bottle!
Date:
January 27, 2003
• Did you
happen to catch
the Gameshow Network's new show "Cram" this past week? If so,
you
would have seen the World's Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville,
Illinois
used as one of the questions and answers! Yep, this stuff even freaks
us
out sometimes. No word on whether the contestant got it right or not, but
we know that you know!
Date:
January 29, 2003
• The Catsup
Bottle Lady,
Judy DeMoisy, gives a well-received presentation to students at Renfro
Elementary School. She explained the processes of historic
preservation,
restoring the water tower, and the hopes and dreams of future Catsup
Bottle
projects. The kids were really into it and had plenty of ideas of their
own! A great time was had by all.
Date: January
30, 2003
• We received
a nice email
from Alice Novak. She teaches historic preservation at the University
of Illinois and was adding our web site to her students' web list.
Very cool! She said they all thought she was joking when she told them
about the World's Largest Catsup Bottle... oh, ye, of little
faith!
Date: January
30, 2003
• The new
postcards are
here! The new postcards
are here!
Date:
January 31, 2003
• The great
educational
powerhouse Scholastic features a link to us on its web site! The
January
edition of the online version of the Classroom Magazine "DynaMath"
has "Golfing Goodies," "Dr. Brainy's Mind Benders," and the "World's
Largest
Catsup Bottle."
Date:
February, 2003
• Keep a look
out for American Magazine, American Road, and St. Louis
Magazine. We sent photos to each of them for use in an upcoming
issue.
 Date:
February 3, 2003
• Our friend Joe
Natale
and his partner in crime Sara Craddock just returned from a
trip
to Ronda, Spain. Thanks you guys for taking the Catsup Bottle with
you!
Date:
February, 2003
• At the Heartland
Travel Tradeshow in Chicago, Carla Anderson of the Collinsville
Convention and Visitors Bureau sponsored a breakfast
for tour operators. Helping her highlight our area were Cathleen
Lindauer
from Belleville Tourism, and Mary Kay Way from the Shrine of Our Lady
of
the Snows. The Catsup Bottle t-shirts were a huge hit!
Date:
February 9, 2003
• We received
an email from a new friend living in Amagasaki, Japan. Akkey
says he is a big fan of catsup and of our web site, promises to stop by
on his next road trip down Route 66. Which, by the way, will be
his 7th since 1994!
Date:
February 14, 2003
• Kristin
Korte, the K-3 Special Education Teacher at Hollywood Heights
Elementary School (Collinsville Unit 10 District), created a
project where her students share things from their community with
students in Australia. We were happy to donate a few Catsup
Bottle items for the box! We hope to get a couple of pix of the kids
soon.
 Date:
February, 2003
• We just
discovered a fantastic web site called "The Grand Canyon Project."
This is a great story from Jane Chase Vickers and Amy Rich,
directors of the children's art program at Patchwork Central, a small
non-profit
organization in inner-city Evansville, Indiana. They traveled out west
on
a journey of art and discovery, and made the Catsup Bottle one of their
stops
along the way. We were amazed at their success and hope everyone will
take
the time to visit
their site.
Date:
February 14, 2003
• The Missouri
Historical Society has included a couple of Catsup Bottle photos in
their special exhibit called "Memory." It runs now until April 27, 2003.
Date:
February 15, 2003
• We just
received the very first edition "RPPN Bulletin", the newsletter from
our friends at the Recent Past Preservation Network.
RPPN is a non-profit organization "promoting preservation education,
assistance,
and advocacy to encourage a contextual understanding of our modern
built
environment." The Network has a great web site and brings people
together
interested in protecting an often misunderstood and under-appreciated
era
of design. They are always looking for new information and new members
- check 'em out!
Date: March 9, 2003
• World famous
for
his rambles, Roadie Mike
(no relation to Big Tomato Mike) gives us this article about Paul
Bunyon, Superman,
and the Catsup Bottle. Learn more about folk heroes and condiments
immortalized
in places where culture and chrome meet asphalt and art.
 Date:
March 9, 2003
• While
perusing www.foodreference.com,
Chef Jeannie Sammis
of Alexander City, Alabama, discovered a listing for our upcoming
Summerfest
and couldn't resist the pangs of curiousity to check us out! eannie
writes
the "On Cooking" column for the Alexander City Outlook and
suddenly
we were the subject of her next article! Jeannie became a Fan Club
member
and quick friends with all of us here at Catsup Bottle Central Command.
Thanks,
Chef Sammis, pour it on!
 Date: March 9, 2003
• As part of
the Food Network Specials series, the program "Funniest
Food TV"
premiered. Featured on the show is a video segment of our 2002
Summerfest,
shot by our good buddy and stellar volunteer, Chad Doyle. The piece was
produced
by Think Huge Productions (love that name!) and airs:
• Sunday, March 9, 2003 at 8:00 pm CT
• Sunday, March 9, 2003 at 11:00 pm CT
• Saturday, March 15, 2003 at 3:00 pm CT
• Sunday, March 16, 2003 at 10:00 am CT
We're also pleased to report that
every once in a while you can
still catch the "Record Breakers" episode of "Unwrapped"
that features the Catsup Bottle. Check the Food Network listings for rerun
schedule of both of these great shows!
 Date: March 11, 2003
• Although the battle for the Superman water tower was recently lost,
the
good fight continues in Dunnellon, Florida. Residents in this community
have
banded together to restore their historic landmark and things are
moving
along! To help their cause, the Save The Water Tower group has even
registered
the name "Bass Capital of the World" as Dunnellon is famous for its
gooooood
bass fishin'! We just received this historic
photo of their tower.
Date: March
15, 2003
• Today is the realease date for our Summerfest press release
posted on the PRWeb.com service.
We're listed #2 in the travel section, #16 nation-wide, and #18
world-wide.
Date: March
16, 2003
• Our release is picked up and posted on World City Hotels web site.
Date: March
17, 2003
• Special thanks go to GreatRiverRoad.com,
Red
Gold Tomatoes, California
Route 66, StLcalendar.com,
Festivals.com, By
The Way Magazine, and others for including us on their events
calendars.
Date: March 17, 2003
• We recently
got a visit from Lea York, a Collinsville resident and
sponsorship representative
for Sheltering
Wings, a non-profit
sponsorship organization reaching out
to needy children around the globe. She shared with us some photos of
kids
in Burkina Faso, Africa (near the Ivory Coast), wearing their
Catsup Bottle shirts and some pretty
cute smiles.
Date:
March 24, 2003
• The latest
edition of St. Louis Magazine arrived today via the fine
folks of the United States Postal Service. The cover story features Mr.
Wayne Hagin, the new voice of the St. Louis Cardinals. And
just as important (to us anyway), low and behold, inside in the "Ask
STL Mag" section we find the
Catsup Bottle! The question is: "What happened to the original
Brooks Catsup factory in the Kerry Patch area?" Do you
know the answer to that one?
Date:
March 26, 2003
• The
war in Iraq is now a week old, and we hesitated to send out our
latest
email update feeling that it might seem a bit inappropriate right now.
Buuuuut
we sent it, and we were glad to here from a lot of folks who welcome
the
diversion! Thanks, gang. In fact, we heard from a mom who's son is on a
ship
in the Persian Gulf and she was going to print out the Catsup
Bottle web
site and mail it to him and his buddies!
Date: April
8, 2003
• "Holy
guacamole!"
At first we thought our web site tracking software was broken... We
woke
up to find over 600 web hits by 9:00 a.m.! We're normally happy if we
hit
a hundred a day. The highest so far was just a couple weeks ago on March
29 when "Major Geeks"
posted a link for us (thank you Tim, Jim and the gang!) and we reached
335
hits for that day... followed by days of 282 and 263 hits.
• And now this happens!!! As it turns out, "Webshots" listed us as its "Cool
Site of the Day" for today. Thank you Webshots people! **WHEW!! **
We'll post the total hits after the smoke clears tomorrow
morning!!!
Date: April 9, 2003
• Well, gang,
it's tomorrow... let me catch my breath... we had 2,433 hits
yesterday...
totally unbelievable. Now, I'm sure there are millions of web sites out
there
that get 24 hundred hits a day... but it's not supposed to happen to
us!!!
What an incredible surprise!! And to top it all off, yesterday's
onslaught put us over the 100,000 hits mark!!
Date: April 16, 2003
• The Collinsville
Herald Journal covers the news of our milestone in a front
page story by Curtiss
Hartley
entitled "Catsup Bottle Web Site is a Hit with Surfers Around the
World".
It also about in the online edition of the Suburban Journal section of StLtoday.com
- Thanks, Curtiss, it was a great article!
Date: April 17, 2003
• Buzzzzzzz,
buzzzzzzzz, buzzzzzzzzz... Hmmmm, what's that sound? We hear it daily!
Stay tuned to find out! ... ... ...
Date: Saturday, April 19, 2003
• It was
a dreary morning this Saturday, but we made the best of it and had a
great
time with Mitch English, a host of the morning news program, "The
Daily Buzz." Mitch, and photographer Eric Colley,
were in town doing a story on St. Louis area attractions. It was also
to
include the Museum of Transportation and Blueberry Hill. We've got
some good
photos here, check 'em
out!
• "The Daily
Buzz" airs between 6:00 am and 8:00 am on KPLR-WB11
in St. Louis and on 120 other stations around the country! As soon as
we
find out when our segment will be on, we'll post it here and send out a
Fan
Club emailing so everyone can watch!
Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2003
• An article
mentioning the Catsup Bottle, and our friend Mike The
Headless Chicken, appears on the MSNBC News web site. The
piece by Reid Bramblett is in the Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel
section. It's entitled "The
Road Less
Traveled"
and it's about the 95 official "Scenic Byways" designated by the U.S.
Secretary
of Transportation for "outstanding archaeological, cultural,
historical,
natural, recreational, and scenic value."
Thanks for refering to us as a
"hallowed icon of Americana"
- we appreciate that!
By the way, of the 95 Scenic Byways in this country, three of them come
to Collinsville! The Great River Road, Route 66, and the Route 40
National Road.
Date: April 28, 2003
• We just
learned that the new parent company of Brooks ketchup is Birds
Eye Foods.
If you're looking to buy your favorite rich & tangy ketchup and
can't
find it in your area you may be able to talk to them about it.
 Date:
May 2, 2003
• We just
received word from Mitch at The Daily Buzz letting us know that
our segment of "Mitch Does St. Louis" will air on Monday, May 5,
2003 at about 6:40 am (CT). Everyone be sure to check it out! The
nationally syndicated program runs from 6:00 am to 8:00 am on KPLR
Channel 11 in St. Louis. Does it air in your city? Let's hope
so!!
Date: Monday,
May 5, 2003
• Thank you Eric
and Mitch! The piece was great - nice job! And on the set, Ron
Corning and Andrea Jackson
were proud to show off their Fan Club certificates and membership
cards.On
top of all that, a friend said she saw promos for "the Daily Buzz" and
the
Catsup Bottle running during the St. Louis Cardinals baseball
game broadcast the day before... that's pretty darn cool...!! We've got some good
photos here, check 'em out!
Date: May 6, 2003
• Sue Strobl
from Dunnellon, Florida, sent us some pix
of autographed mementos from her trip to the "Today" show in New York
City.
Her trip to the Big Apple helped in the effort to save the water tower
in
Dunnellon. The featured fotos by Jim Huston come courtesy of Catsup
Bottle Fans Sharon and Jim at www.totallyillogical.com
- thanks guys!
Date: Friday, May 9, 2003
• Hey, hey!
The folks at MSN have now posted the "The
Road Less Traveled"
article by Reid Bramblett on their MSN Home Page "Your World" section
-- translating into a huge
number of web hits for us. It seriously looks like we may break the
one-day
hit record!!!
Date: May 10, 2003
• Yep, we did! Or,
should I say, "You
visitors
did it!!" The home page had a total of 3,101 hits yesterday. --
wow --
 Date: June, 2003
• Things are
really happening as we gear up for the 2003 Catsup Bottle Summerfest.
Pieces are already scheduled to run in the summer issues of American
Road, American Magazine, and Midwest Gaming and Travel.
We've also been selected to be featured on AOL Digital City.
• As seen previously, Hampton Inns have included us in
their
"Year of 1,000 Weekends Calendar" and now they are also featuring us in
their
video news release of their favorite travel festivals of the summer!
 Date: June, 2003
• Those of you
in the St. Louis area will really appreciate this one!! The one and
only Becky Queen of Carpet
will be seen flying around the Catsup Bottle during her new
commercials.
Thanks to some old friends in influential places, we were able to have
an
audience with her royal highness and she agreed to feature the Catsup
Bottle
and to also promote the Summerfest for us! Becky's Carpet & Tile
Superstore is our first ever official media sponsor! Thank you,
your Majesty!! And for those of you NOT in the St. Louis area, all
we can say is "sorry, you're missing out!"
• A friend recently stopped in the office and explaining that
she
had just seen the commercial exclaimed, "You might as well stop
everything.
You have definately arrived. You've made the big time, now. You can
just
go ahead and quit. Nothing can top this!"
Date:
June 1, 2003
• The 2nd
annual Kids WB! Way Outta The Way Road Trip
promotion started yesterday. We've been working closely with the folks
at Kids WB in Burbank, California
for the last few weeks. The piece turned out
great!
• Our travel team, the Wacky Jackies, visited
Collinsville
looking for the Catsup Bottle. Unfortunately for them they got a little
lost
and ended up crashing into the legs and blasting the cap off and
covering
themselves with Brooks Tangy Catsup! Yum!
Date: June 23, 2003
• Okay, y'all, this one takes the cake. Waaaaay back a few months ago,
while
doing a little creative thinking "outside the box" as they say... an
idea
came to fruition. And after doing a little research I tracked down the
big
wigs behind the Killer Tomatoes franchise and sent a little
email planting a seed that it would be really cool for
them to be involved in our Catsup Bottle Festival. Imagine my
surprise when a reply email came from Killer Tomato Corporate Counsel
saying "Let's talk."
• So we did. One thing lead to another and we've made some more great
friends out in Burbank, California! Mike at KT Productions and
Sam at Warner Strategic Marketing
have been fantastic. We've already got some t-shirts in hand, and are
expecting
some more promotional items any day now. Thanks, guys!
 •
Why all the
hoopla? Well, this year is the 25th anniversary
of the original cult classic "Attack
of the Killer Tomatoes" movie, and Rhino Home Video
will be releasing the special commemorative DVD this September! So
watch out folks, they're back and ripe for revenge!
Date:
July 1, 2003
• Warm up
those vocal chords and join us for the "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"
theme song sing-a-long/contest at 1:00 pm during the Catsup Bottle
Summerfest on Sunday July, 6... sponsored by Rhino Home Video.
Date: July 3, 2003
• Well, well, well. How's this for exciting news?!? We just received
confirmation that 2 of the lovely
and talented St. Louis Rams
Cheerleaders will be making an
appearance at the Summerfest! They
will be on hand at 12:00 noon until 3:00 pm.
Many
thanks go to Todd and Meg and all our friends at Evers
Prescription Pharmacy in
downtown Collinsville for making this
possible!
• We also got
word that Fox 2 Sunday Morning
News will
be sending
a broadcast truck to the Catsup Bottle and having us on for a live
interview.
Be sure to tune in at 8:30 in the morning on Sunday!
Date: July 6, 2003
• Everything went really well with the interview on KTVI Fox 2
Sunday Morning news program. Mike had the pleasure of talking live
with Jill Farmer and Len Turner in the studio to promote the Catsup Bottle Summerfest
and the Killer Tomato sing-a-long. Mike was joined by Collinsville city
councilman
Joy Springer, her daughter Kollyn, and their awesome "Tomato Crate"
pick-up
truck! Thank you, Producer Jamie, for setting it all up!
Date: July 6,
2003
• The 5th Annual
World's Largest Catsup Bottle Summerfest Birthday Party
and Car Show
Bash
on Sunday, July 6, 2003 was an overwhelming success! Get all the
details and take a look at the photo galleries here. The tentative
date for 2004
is July 11. Mark your calendar now!
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