Last updated on 2015-05-06
East River is headed for a week of Obamamania, as the President of the United States comes to Watertown Friday to speak to this spring’s graduates at Lake Area Vo-Tech. The local press will be looking for every scrap of local feel-good stories tangentially related to the presence of the Leader of the Free World…
…like this invitation to the President posted by Brookings boosters a couple of days before the White House announced the Watertown visit.
Seth Koch of Wooden Legs Brewing and a couple friends put together a video with Mayor Tim Reed showing all the good things President Obama would find in their city. There’s none of Lawrence & Schiller’s quick-cut ironic hipster nonsense. There’s no naked, juvenile attempt to win the scorn of late-night television just to get attention. There’s no throwing meaningless or baldly counterfactual words like “progressive.”
There’s just Mayor Reed showing us the nice things around Brookings while the videographers do their best to make Brookings look good before amidst bare pre-spring trees. The video could have used more Brookingsians (the SDSU students cheering “Hobo Days!” were a nice break from what Pat Powers at any moment should be deriding as his mayor’s Huetheresque vanity and self-promotion). But blessedly, Koch & Reed avoid the kamikaze marketing of Lawrence & Schiller. Unlike the state’s high-priced marketers, they believe their town’s assets—industry, education, recreation, Nick’s Hamburgers, and beer—are good enough to sell Brookings without desperate attempts to fabricate Internet memes.
And Team Brookings put together this positive video without a three-year, three-million-dollar contract from the Governor’s slush fund. Imagine the videos we could get if that Future Fund money were diverted from the slick advertisers in Sioux Falls to local boosters who simply love their towns. Videos like Koch & Reed’s may not get the President to come for a photo opp, but they can do more to educate and recruit potential residents and entrepreneurs than Lawrence & Schiller’s marketing ploys.
P.S.: Mayor Reed refers to Nick’s hamburgers as “sliders.” I’m wondering: when did the term “slider” enter the local culinary vernacular? And does anyone walk into Nick’s and order a “slider“?
Screw Brookings.
Lake Area Technical Institute has received many thousands of Future Fund dollars unlike Bel Brands that received millions in that pay-to-play scheme. While Brookings has retrograded from progressive to backwater Watertown is constructing the roundabout or traffic circle that Brookings has rejected.
Nice video. Simple and effective. Much too simple and straightforward and inexpensive for Larry the Shiller, whose Mars commercial will not convince a single, solitary person to move to SD.
PS: I’ve been referring to BK burgers as “sliders” recently. They’re not square, and they’re not oniony, but they have been miniaturized. Clara Peller would not approve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0
Off topic, but shouldn’t President Obama start referring to North Korea as the Kingdom of North Korea, and to Kim Jong Un as King Kim Jong Un? Seems to me that the passing down of leadership from one generation to the next is the defining characteristic of a monarchy.
Larson Manufacturing won my respect last year when they sent all of their employees on an expenses paid trip to the Bahamas in honor of their 60th anniversary. I helped with the ground handling for that flight (They even went local for that), and there were tons of brand new passports, for most it was their first vacation and first time out of the country.
It would be nice if there were more employers cared for their employees that much.
http://www.gillphotos.com/gillespie-photography/atlantis-paradise-island-corporate-event-photos
http://archive.argusleader.com/article/20140316/BJNEWSCOLUMN/303160020/Schwan-When-boss-sends-you-Bahamas
Every employee? Wow! I should have gone into doors!
And not just buying tickets, but helping with passports. Indeed, that’s the mark of an employer that rewards good work and loyalty. Tell that story, GOED!
Look way beyond the Larson trip and how many things have the Larson name on them in Brookings. Bet you can’t name them all. Not only takes care of their employees, but their town.
Tim Reed is an earth hater? I thought he was a Democrat.