Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 3, 1991 TAG: 9103030124
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DANVILLE LENGTH: Long
The company claims to be the world's biggest manufacturer of yellow ribbon. It claims to be the world's biggest manufacturer of ribbon, period.
But it's the ubiquitous yellow ribbon - which seems to have been unofficially adopted as America's fourth national color - that has kept the workers at this Southside Virginia factory busy these past months.
And mindful that they're doing more than just cutting, wrapping and packing any old kind of acetate satin.
They're preserving memories.
"When I run the yellow ribbon, I think of all the young men and women and our leaders, and I pause during the day and say a special prayer for them," said Rebecca Hale as she fed the material through her machine. "Whenever I see a yellow ribbon, it's like a prayer reminder. I hope when the consumer buys it, it serves the same purpose for them, too."
The rise of the yellow ribbon phenomenon has befuddled the ribbon industry, said Offray Vice President David Price.
An antebellum Texas cavalry unit was noted for its yellow scarves, which the men left behind with their sweethearts during the Civil War. John Wayne once starred in a movie called "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon."
But it was a pop song from the early '70s about a freed prisoner returning home - Tony Orlando's "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" - that wrapped the yellow ribbon around the nation's heart.
A few yellow ribbons, a precious few, fluttered when the prisoners of war came home from North Vietnam. A whole lot more were seen during the Iranian hostage crisis. And as soon as American soldiers started to be shipped to Saudi Arabia last August, suddenly it seemed the whole country was spontaneously abloom in yellow.
"We couldn't have merchandised this," Price said. "It came to us totally unaware."
He's got some theories about why yellow ribbon caught on, though. "It's pleasing to the eye. It's friendly. It flutters in the breeze. Ribbons bespeak happiness." And as a statement, the yellow ribbon also is wonderfully vague and apolitical, he notes. "Each person, it means something different to them," he said.
It certainly means good news for ribbon-makers, especially Offray. The company is privately held, so sales figures are hard to come by. But clearly the company has come a long way from 1876, when a French peddler named Claude Offray started selling ribbon out of a suitcase in New York City.
The New Jersey-based company now has plants throughout the eastern United States and one in Europe, making more than 4,000 types of ribbons, Price said.
Usually, the big season is Christmas, which keeps the company humming through spring and summer. But just when the holiday season was about to wind down for Offray last summer, the Persian Gulf crisis erupted.
Boom. The Danville plant had been making about 200,000 yards of yellow ribbon each week. Within weeks, it was turning out 3 million yards a week - and still is.
The demand for red, white and blue ribbon has surged, too - from 25,000 yards to 1.5 million yards per week.
"Since last August, we haven't been able to catch up, and we've been three to four weeks behind ever since," Price said.
He's had to hire about 60 new workers, putting his total payroll at about 250, and increase the number of shifts from one to two or three per day.
The unemployment rate in this tobacco-and-textile city runs about 9 percent, so a company that's hiring is understandably welcome, even if war is the reason.
"I like being busy," said Cindy Bayes. "I hate the situation that made me busy."
"I'd just as soon not be cutting it, if that's the case," said Brian Tickle, a former National Guardsman, as he sliced yellow ribbon and wound it onto a spool. "But if I can't be over there, I might as well be doing something."
With that in mind, workers say it gives them an especially good feeling to be making yellow ribbon.
"It makes me feel like I'm doing something to support the troops," said LeGeorge Smith. "When I talk to some girls, they say, `What are all these yellow ribbons for?' and I say, `I cut that!' It's like my work represents something."
That work is doubly meaningful for Rebecca Hale, who has a nephew in the Air Force in Saudi Arabia, and the half-dozen or so other workers who also have relatives in the gulf.
And while Americans at home tie yellow ribbons to remember loved ones far away in a time of danger, those in the line of fire have been doing the same to reciprocate the feelings. Price said workers were especially delighted to see television news clips that showed yellow ribbons tied around tanks - and newly liberated Kuwaitis waving yellow ribbons at American GIs. "We hope it was one of ours," he says.
Even with the cease-fire, orders for yellow ribbon haven't slacked off, Price said. And if it takes many months to bring the troops home, he expects ribbon sales to stay strong through summer. If anything, the demand for ribbon could increase, with Memorial Day and July Fourth coming up and communities all over the country expected to stage emotional homecomings for returning soldiers.
The only change might be the color. "We're going to see an increase in the red, white and blue," Price predicted. "With the conflict's end, we've seen a groundswell of patriotism as it relates to the flag."
But whatever the color, Hale will be saying her daily prayer over the ribbon that threads through her machine - until the last soldier is home.
by CNB