Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 6, 1993 TAG: 9310060025
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
An update: After meticulously combing the resumes of hundreds of aspirants, judges have finally been selected. The distinguished panel will convene Friday at an undisclosed Western Virginia location to laugh at your entries, belittle you behind your backs and select winners.
Your chances are about 1 in 155 of coming up a winner.
Results and valuable prizes soon will follow. To you smart alecks who inquired about whether you'd need to ask the boss for vacation time when you won, the answer is obvious to everyone but you.
Stay tuned.
Update II: It was only 18 months ago that my name was being whispered in the hushed tones usually reserved for such proud leaders as Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, George C. Marshall, and Elmer Hodge.
It seemed an impossible task - taking on a magazine that sells more than a million copies a month - but when Southern Living magazine dropped Roanoke from its long-range weather forecast of selected Southern cities, I rallied the masses to rebellion.
We rabbled. We rebelled. We won.
The Southern Living mail-room floor groaned beneath the weight of our angry letters. Hand trucks carrying our mail clogged the elevators.
Finally, Bill McDougald, the magazine's managing editor, relented to the deluge and put Roanoke back on the map.
It was our proudest moment, as Roanoke reclaimed its rightful place in the sun. And the rain.
Our victory was short-lived. Southern Living did away with its weather map in its July issue, replacing it with a 97-cent-per-minute 900 phone number and ending our year of modest publicity. The call can get you the weather forecast in 900 cities worldwide. I am too cheap to call to find out if Roanoke is included.
Update III: Jimmy Gusler didn't know what to expect in August when he rolled his 25-year-old repainted Volkswagen Beetle out of the body shop. It was painted like a Redskins helmet - logo on the side, face mask in the front.
It was an authentic-looking four-wheeled, four-cylindered, air-cooled piece of Redskins headgear.
Since then, Gusler's been invited to car shows - he won one, in Richlands, and bagged a 3-foot-tall trophy - and motorcycle shows, football games and assorted sporting events.
He'll travel to Charlotte, N.C., this week at the invite of Joe Gibbs, the former Redskins coach and current race car owner, so that Gibbs can see and sign the car. Gusler uses it to collect autographs.
Back at home, the Redskins helmet spends much of its time parked nose-to-nose with a Dallas Cowboys Volkswagen helmet. The spinoff belongs to Gary Stoner, a Gusler chum and a lifelong Cowboys fan.
by CNB