Mugging for customers

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal May 20, 2009

I picked up my Club Ed notepad and grabbed a KVHC pen from the Kee Motors mug I use as a pen holder. I wrote out my grocery list and stuck it to the refrigerator with the A-1 Transmissions magnet.

I was late for an appointment, so I grabbed the A&M key ring, my UT travel mug, and my UNT gimme cap and dashed for the car.

Welcome to the world of advertising specialties.

Putting ads on common items began back in1845, when an enterprising insurance agent printed his business message on calendars he gave as gifts. Over 150 years later, we still are suckers for freebies.

Just gazing at my desk, I see a Zurich letter opener, Office Max jump drive, and several calendars from printers, insurance companies, and LP gas suppliers. I even use a Fredericksburg Community Education screen cleaner to wipe off my computer monitor!

Could we make it through a day without using these handy gadgets? More important, why would we want to?

I asked Betty Braswell, owner of ADCO Advertising for 27 years.

"Everybody uses them," Braswell said. "People do like to get free things. We hope the items we sell will stay with the customers as advertisements for business."

Braswell noted that pens are perennially popular, along with caps, T-shirts and trophies. Drink mugs for cars are big, and "koozies" to keep bottles and cans cool still stand out. Braswell noted that couples are now giving away custom koozies as wedding favors.

The tchotchke doesn't even have to be useful or functional to be effective. One of my favorite pickups was an inch-long triangular plastic gadget that flashed intermittent red LEDs when you pushed on it. I still have no idea of its purpose. For all I know it's a universal homing device and an alien race will soon land on my lawn.

At Club Ed, we are not immune from using ad specialties to keep our name in front of customers. Our little logo (the Club Ed guy getting conked on the head by a coconut) graces notepads, calendars, T-shirts, banners, and the crowd favorite - pink flamingo-shaped writing pens.

It is silly to think that getting a free wooden yardstick will sway our decision on which real estate agent to use, but it happens. One salesman swore he closed million-dollar deals by giving the buyer a pair of cowboy boots. I am among those who feel a sense of elation all out of proportion to getting a free screen cleaner.

A question for the ages, I decide, as I sip coffee from my Club Ed mug.

XXX

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes with 3000 enrollments. The fall session begins in September. To sign up, ask a question, suggest a class, or apply to teach, call 830-895-4386, or visit www.clubed.net.

Whacking away

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal
May 13, 2009


As a kid, Matt Trevino tagged along as his grandfather played golf. No one in his family played all that well - they couldn’t break 100. But those golf outings made an impression on young Trevino that drives him to pass along the passion of the game to today’s youngsters.

“I was enamored of beauty of the course as I tagged along,” the Riverhill Country Club head golf pro recalled. “We have three beautiful courses in Kerrville, and you can't ask for a better golf atmosphere in a community. In order for the game and the courses to survive, we need to get young people playing.”

Getting young people playing is the purpose of Trevino’s summer junior golf clinics at Club Ed. Trevino, who had no lessons as a kid, loves introducing youngsters to the sport.

“None of this was taught to me at school, so I had to learn on my own,” he said. “I love the game. It can teach us a lot of lessons other sports can't. I am trying to make the game more accessible to the community. The earlier we get them started, the better chance to grow the game.”

Trevino starts by teaching the rules and etiquette of golf. Then he “lets them whack away.”

“They are looking to hit a bunch of shots,” he said. “We let them figure out how fun it is. They all want to hit balls.”

Trevino employs a three-pronged approach to teach kids - or adults - to be better golfers. First is to get them to put their hands on the club the right way. Then they learn how to stand. And finally, how to swing.

“I you get them to grip it right and stand right, odds are they are going to swing right,” he explained.

Most kids he sees in junior camps start at the 8 to 10 age range. With golf, younger is better.

As to those lessons that golf teaches? Trevino ticks them off.

“Golf is a tough game to learn,” he said. “It is a very individual game and what you put into it is what you get out of it. You don't have somebody to pass the ball to. It is a game of integrity - almost every penalty is self-imposed. So it teaches honesty, builds integrity, and teaches you how to work hard.”

Trevino’s vision goes beyond the immediate improvement in kids’ golf games.

“Part of my feeling and part of my job as a PGA professional is to grow the game for years to come,” he said. “These kids will be the pros of the future. I can't imagine having grown up and learned a different sport.”

XXX

Matt Trevino will teach Junior Golf sessions this summer on Wednesdays at 4:30 at Riverhill Country Club. Club Ed offers15 enriching summer camps and programs that range from rockets to computers to horses. To sign up, visit www.clubed.net or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes with 3000 enrollments. The fall session begins in September. To sign up, ask a question, suggest a class, or apply to teach, call 830-895-4386, or visit www.clubed.net.

An artist at any age

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal - May 6, 2009

We always say folks can learn at any age, but it is still a good surprise when someone comes in to sign up their 86-year-old mother for an art class.

Why would someone put an octogenarian in a beginning art class?

“Because she raised seven kids and never had the time to do any fun stuff,” her daughter - whom I’ll call Alice - replied. “Our daddy was in the military so we moved all the time, and she had to be a homemaker until her oldest girl started college.”

Alice’s mother’s yearnings for something deeper started early in her life. Her father died when she was only 9, so she went to work as a secretary at 15 in order to help support her large family.

“She didn’t get to do any fun stuff in school,” she said, “Just typing and shorthand. She just wanted to know how to draw.”

While her mom lacked experience, she did not want for confidence. Maybe it was a trait she picked up from her hard early life.

“She would look at the work of a grand master painting and say, ‘I can do that!” Alice said. “She always just wanted a chance to draw.”

Her mom started drawing on her own, putting pen to any paper she had handy, even using the backs of used postcards. She would make intricate drawings, sign them and sometimes frame them, telling friends and family, “See, I can do this.”

So now her daughters were getting her into an art class. Still, their mother didn’t go without protest.

“I saw it there in your catalog and said she is going to love to draw,” Alice said. “She would not ask to take a course, because she felt guilty asking us to drive her to class.”

“Our mother thought taking a drawing class was a waste of time,” she added. “After all, a child of the depression just didn't do that stuff.”

Thanks to her daughters, one child of the depression is proving again that it is never too late to learn.

XXX

No matter your age, for information or on signing up for any class, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

Mom... I'm bored

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, April 29, 2009


"Sign my kid up for everything."

That is a direct quote from a phone call I received last spring from a parent looking for summer activities for their child. Once again it is time to think about finding great things for kids to do during those 12 weeks of summer.

Typically the excitement of being out of school wears out after about three days. Kids get restless; parents are pulling out their hair trying to come up with something to keep the kids out of their hair.

Never fear - Hill Country Kids is here! This long-running catalog of kids summer activities pulls together the best diversions in the area. Inside is a directory listing of every single organized kids activity in Kerrville, Hunt, Ingram, Comfort, Fredericksburg, Boerne, and points in between, along with detailed information on select offerings.

For starters, you'll find every Vacation Bible School in the area. Then there are the camps, from MO Ranch to the YMCA. Is your child interested in tumbling, dancing, riding, swimming, or playing music? Look inside - see what you find. There are even some diversions that don't fit any category. Try taking a trip to the Wild Animal Orphanage just this side of San Antonio, where you can spend a day visiting more than 150 lions, tigers, bears, and other exotic animals.

Or round up your cowgirls for a summer camp at the Enchanted Springs Ranch, where the buckarettes will learn how to care for animals, cook dutch oven style, garden, and rope.

These activities are not just mindless diversions to fill time. Don't let your children know, but they might actually learn something. Club Ed for Kids is sending up rockets again at the Shoot For The Stars rocket camp. We also are running the full array of science and art camps featuring Lego building bricks, engineering, claymation, robotics, and junior engineering. We even snuck in one class for adults - Beginning Guitar. No reason to take the summer off from playing music!

The Hill Country Arts Foundation is offering a theater camp, Boerne Gymnastics is reprising its popular and fun Circus Arts camp where kids will learn acrobatics and clown skills. Speaking of clowns, our cover clown "Sunshine" is putting on a magic class and balloon sculpting class for wannabe show people, all supplies included.

The list is endless: twirling, tennis, tapping, drawing, karate, golf, reading. There is no reason to ever hear those grating three words, "Mom... I'm bored."

Pick up a copy of Hill Country Kids, and sign up your youngsters (or grandyoungsters) for everything!

XXX

Hill Country Kids catalog is sent home with every elementary and middle school child in public and private schools in the hill country. You can also pick up a copy at local chambers and libraries, or by visiting www.hillcountrykids.net. Or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

Shooting for the Stars

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal April 22, 2009


Calling all future astronauts and rocket scientists. You might get your ticket to outer space by launching your very own rocket right here in Kerrville.

The Shoot for the Stars Rocket Camp is our best-attended summer program. Every year, we offer several four-day workshops where kids ages 8 to 13 get their hands on model rockets. This camp was developed by Brett Williams at Fredericksburg High School, as an offshoot of his nationally-recognized aeroscience course. It is offered throughout the hill country and is taught by Williams' current and former students.

While the camp is great fun, the youngsters cannot get their hands on their rockets until they learn some basics of flight. They must take notes as the instructor introduces them to Newton's Laws, the laws of thermodynamics, and the Bernoulli Principle (any of you grownups want to take a stab at reciting those?). It's tough training, but soon they will see these scientific concepts applied to the real world.

That is the fun part. Under two instructors' guidance, the students soon are selecting body tubes, gluing on fins, and mounting recovery systems. Over the next four days, they determine the center of mass and the center of pressure, then weight the nose cone with BBs to compensate. The final step is adding the engine mount, making their rockets launch-ready.

Launch day is a big event. Families are there, as short kids and tall kids carry tall rockets and short rockets out to the football field behind the Auld Center. All are hand-built with care and pride.

That drilling on laws earlier in the week pays off, as each student must answer a few basic questions on the principles of flight before they are cleared to launch. They then take their rocket to the launch pad and connect the wires that will ignite the engine.

The countdown begins, as the crowd takes up the chant: 3... 2... 1! The young rocketeer punches the launch button.

Every bird goes up. Some ride the plume straight and true, some corkscrew and wobble. More than we like end up in trees or on top of school buildings. The best descend gracefully within the bounds of the football field.

But when you look in the eyes of the young man or woman who has just watched his or her creation ascend to the clouds, there is no doubt this rocket camp has ignited something straight and true.

XXX

Shoot for the Stars Rocket Camp will be held in Kerrville and at Ingram Middle School the week of June 8. Details on these and all other summer programs can be found in the Hill Country Kids catalog being sent home with area students. Information also available online at www.hillcountrykids.com or www.clubed.net, or by calling 895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

Send in the clown

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, April 15, 2009


I once assessed my "skill set" as I reworked my resume in anticipation of a job search. I could juggle, ride a unicycle, was good with kids, and could do magic. Great, I realized - I'm qualified to be a clown.

Shannon Anderson, owner of the Old Thyme Fun Shop on Main Street in Fredericksburg, went through a similar process.

"When I moved to Fredericksburg, I wondered what do I already know how to do to make a living?" she said. "Well, I already know magic, and I know balloons... I'll be a clown!"

Her first attempt at clowning was not much fun. In fact, she called it a "disaster."

"I was at this house full of fifth-graders, and they had every video game and a big screen TV, and here's this clown doing magic tricks," she recalled. "All of them were saying 'when are you going to leave?'" She chuckled. "I said, 'Now! Close your eyes and count to 10,' and I was out the door! I went home and said I'm never doing this again! Kids are mean!"

Luckily, Anderson - aka Sunshine the Clown - couldn't walk away from her clowning career as easy as that. She already had another gig booked.

She decided that to be funny, she would have to work at it. So she studied other clowns, read books and watched tapes, and attended conventions to learn the art of the clown.

"Some people think anybody can do it; you just slap on some makeup and funny clothes," she said. "It's not that way. There really is an art to it."

Anderson has begun sharing her clowning expertise with young and old. This summer, she will offer Magic for Beginners and Balloon Sculpting - the art of twisting dogs and giraffes out of balloons. In the fall she hopes to add local clowning courses for adults.

Meanwhile, you can see Sunshine rule her kingdom of kitsch in the Old Thyme Fun Shop. It's the kind of store you loved to go into when you were a kid.

There is the fake fly in the ice cube, the spilled coffee, the finger-shaped nose hair trimmer, a plastic rat, and the doormat that read, "Come Back With a Warrant." And then there are the classics: the handshake buzzer, fake vomit, and, of course, the rubber chicken.

A steady stream of kids and giggling grownups hauled away bags of fake bagels with the cockroach, hillbilly teeth, rolling eyeballs, and piles of T-shirts with naughty messages.

Anderson was busy showing a customer how to perform the national anthem on a whoopee cushion. Obviously, clowning is the central part of Anderson's life.

"Laughter is therapeutic, it shakes up all your organs and makes a chemical reaction in your body that no drug can replace," she said. "Letting yourself play as an adult is one of the greatest things we can do for ourselves in this hectic, serious world. There's humor in everything, like it or not."

XXX

Have Camera; Will Travel

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, April 8, 2009


One of the surprisingly popular courses this year has been our series of "how to" photography classes. Generously planned and taught by members of the Hill Country Camera Club, the courses range from using digital cameras to travel photography.

HCCC vice-president Joe Skymba was tapped to lead the travel photography class. He traveled ambitiously during 22 years as a Marine Corps photographer. That assignment took him from shooting battles in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic to a front row perch at John F. Kennedy's inauguration.

"We try to inspire the traveler to shoot more than pictures of buildings... or people standing in front of a sign," Skymba said.

One of Skymba's favorite travel tricks is to shoot "people" pictures - photos of indigent natives going about their daily lives. He always asks permission, even if he can't speak the language.

"In Europe, if I saw good image of a person, I would point at my camera, then point at him, then nod my head," he explained. They would either nod their head or say no. "Most of the time they said yes."

If you insist in shooting buildings, Skymba has some tips that make them more interesting. He suggests shooting in the rain, or shooting after the sun goes down.

"If you shoot it at right time - right after the sun goes down, the sky will be nice and blue. You will get the outline of the building, but you will also capture light coming from the building and from streetlights."

Today's digital cameras give travelers even more options. With speeds up to 1600 and even 3200, it is easier to capture images with little light. Digital cameras offer another benefit over film.

"When I used to travel, I would shoot slides, then develop them when I got back to the states," he said. "I did not have luxury of shooting 500 digital images. The digital age is really great, and getting better and better."

Camera club members help novices adjust their digital cameras to get the optimum pictures. Skymba notes that most set their camera on automatic and leave it there. That way, they'll get the picture, but that is not the best they can do.

But no matter what equipment a photographer chooses, the art of getting the best photos comes down to the person squeezing the shutter. Skymba offered two suggestions that would immediately improve the quality of your travel photos.

"First, move in closer on your subject," he said. "I'm not sure why people don't do that - even some of our club members don't. Second, shoot more than one shot. Try different angles, and you will be surprised what you come up with."

No matter which camera you use, or how practiced your technique, Skymba encourages everyone to take pictures whenever they travel.

"You will bring back memories for you and your family, and you'll have something to show your relatives and friends, and something to put in your scrapbook."

XXX

The Travel Photography class will meet April 21. For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.