An Indiana Sense of Humor
It’s no secret that Indiana doesn’t have the greatest terrain for snowboarding, though it does have Paoli Peaks and Perfect North. I imagine that neither has a vertical drop of over 300 feet, but then again, you make do with what you have.
Speaking of making do, how about the town of Terre Haute? Its name literally means “high ground.” My best friend in college had looked into attending an engineering college there known as Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Sometime in the 1970s and 80s they developed a recruiting poster that played off the image of Indiana as a sea of cornfield as well as the irony that Terre Haute really isn’t that that high (about 500 feet above sea level) and is in fact flat.
Come to our school, the poster said, and you can Ski Terre Haute!
If the poster was created today, would they use a jibber on a snowboard?
By the way, you can now order one of those posters for your kid’s dorm room.
February 21, 2011 @ 8:35 pm
FYI: I created the poster for Rose-Hulman years before computers and photoshop. The background photo was a 4×5″ color transparency converted to a large b&w print. The skier was a neighbor set up on a piece of plywood angled off a curb in our neighborhood. This was shot in the summertime. A large print was made from that photo session, it was ten cut out, pasted on to the background, then the edges of the cutout were airbrushed and white airbrush paint applied along the skis. We also sprayed Christmas tree flock on the skis and boots during the shoot. I was behind the camera the photographer was behind the skier. When I said “O.K.” the skier would fall sideways the photographer would break his fall and I would snap the picture. I still have the color transparency and the proof sheets of the photo session if anyone would be interested in seeing them.
Aloha,
Richard
February 21, 2011 @ 8:39 pm
Wow! Richard, that’s a great story. Thank you for stopping by. You obviously did a job that has a legacy.