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The annual Fort Wayne Mizpah Shrine Fly-In Breakfast was held today in a hangar at the Fort Wayne International Airport. The event attracts hundreds of Fort Wayne residents as well as Shriners who fly to the airport from around the country to enjoy fresh pancakes, eggs, sausage, ham, hash browns prepared by area Shriners.
Visitors are able to view the numerous small planes flown in for the event as well as the Lutheran Hospital helicopter and vintage cars. The Shrine bag pipes and band provide entertainment during the morning events. Two boys are pictured to the left with their father as they watch one of the planes prepare for takeoff.
The pancakes and eggs are prepare on unique rotating griddles that allow volunteer preparers to stand in stations at intervals around the griddle. One person can pour the batter; two others can flip the flapjacks, and the fourth can serve a waiting diner. Operation of a rotating griddle can be viewed in the FWOb video below.
The griddles were fabricated years ago by an area Shriner and are the only ones in existence.
A newly released book on the efforts to extend Interstate 69 has just been released and has been receiving favorable - and extensive - reviews.
The book is authored by Matt Dellinger. The book's full title is "I-69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway". You can read an excerpt by Mr. Dellinger here.
The Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady has written the latest review in today's edition. Ms. O'Grady writes:
In the 1980s, David Graham, a fifth-generation native of Daviess County in southwestern Indiana, started thinking about how to reverse the economic slide that since mid-century had beset what was once a dynamic agricultural and manufacturing region. [ ... ] But Mr. Graham knew that Daviess couldn't afford the continued loss of industrious young people. He soon identified what he regarded as the main culprit: The vast network of interstate highways created by the Eisenhower administration's Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 never reached southwestern Indiana.
A 1990 study looked at the potential for new federally funded routes in the region and concluded that, for the money, they didn't make sense. But that same year David Reed, a researcher for the Hudson Institute, then headquartered in Indianapolis, came up with another idea: Take I-69, an interstate running from Port Huron, Mich., on the Canadian border, to Indianapolis, and finish it all the way to Mexico. Mr. Reed reasoned that Indiana then wouldn't be alone in lobbying for federal funds, and the rural corner of the state being championed by Mr. Graham would lie smack in the middle of a vibrant new commercial corridor.
What followed, under Mr. Graham's leadership, was the I-69 Mid-Continent Highway Coalition.
[ ... ]What we get is more than the story of a road. "Interstate 69" is an American-civics reality show, featuring pitched battles among special interests, grass-roots activists, environmentalists, politicians and Beltway bandits. Through it all the author, a former editor at The New Yorker, sticks to the narrative and remains largely apolitical.
David Graham had no trouble in the 1990s drumming up support for I-69 in states south of Indiana, particularly once the North American Free Trade Agreement looked possible. (It was signed in 1993.) The prospect of an interstate extending from Canada to Mexico made 1-69 sound like a Nafta superhighway. In cities like Memphis, Tenn., and Shreveport, La., economic animal spirits and an appetite for Washington largess stirred at the suggestion of a brand-new interstate.
[ ... ]
But just as an interstate runs in two directions, so I-69 has encountered staunch opposition.
[ ... ]At this point, I-69 exists primarily in the form of plans and proposals. A few short stretches are being worked on in places like Memphis and Indianapolis. But will the highway ever be completed? It depends on whom you ask, especially in these straitened times. [ ... ]
As for David Graham, a catalyst for the project 25 years ago, he won't have much need for the I-69 extension if it ever opens. Last year he moved to Florida. After one too many frigid Indiana winters, he decided that it was time to hit the road.
There has been much coverage of the plight of service station owners who are taking flak from motorists because the owners are operating BP branded gasoline stations. Many have suggested that BP needs to get rid of its brand in North America and rebrand the company and stations to ease the stigma associated with its handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
There are some press reports that BP is considering rebranding itself as Amoco. A story by the Associated Press' Harry Weber explored the chatter surrounding rebranding but reported that BP officials stated there exists no corporate consideration of rebranding the gas stations.
However, FWOb has encountered one sign that rebranding may already be underway. Fort Wayne Observed predicts that the rebranding will go forward to restore the name "Amoco."
BP and Amoco (the former Standard Oil of Indiana) merged in 1998. In 2001 the decision was made to rebrand all existing Amoco stations as BP stations. Gone was the red, white and blue and in its place was the sunburst/flower design rendered in somewhat lighter versions of green and yellow than the color combination used by John Deere.
Rebranding stations, changing advertising, and deploying new logos on everything from point of purchase sales materials to uniform patches is neither an easy or cheap proposition. Even determining an estimate of the cost and writing a game plan as to how the logistics of such a change would carried out takes time.
As an example, just look to the recent massive change PNC made to rebrand the entire National City Bank system.
However, some things can be changed easily. And that's where FWOb saw a glimmer that rebranding may already be underway.
Recently, a BP MotorClub member had occasion to call for assistance. The customer had originally signed up for the service in 1988 when it was known as the Amoco MotorClub. But, just as everything else that was once Amoco was rebranded as BP so was the motor club. Ever since the rebranding as the BP MotorClub the call center answered the phone with reference to BP.
Last weekend, the phone was answered by asking, "Thank you for calling your motor club. If you are an Amoco MotorClub member please press '1'."
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