[Don Halter]

Thanks Gene, thats exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

Advertising has been at the top of our BOD meetings. I think that's always been an issue for this show...nobody seems to know about it. General listing on forums has brought in a few visitors, but not enough. I think the local Austin area could be a rich source for visitors. Out of all the residents in the greater Austin area, surely more than 400 are interested in Knives!

Several magazines were contacted for ad spacelast year, I don't know about articles though. We sent invitations and/or ad flyers to everyone from oufitters and taxidermists to private hunting ranches and newspapers. I've kept in contact with some of the newspapers that had expressed interest last year, so hopefully we'll get a better turnout this year from them.

As for boy scouts, I contacted every council, and over 40 individual packs when the info was available, within 200 miles of Roundrock and had two respond. Of those, only one requested passes. We offered free admission passes and I even offered to set up a badge workshop for weeblos II and higher (I used to be a counselor for this when we in Bryan). The problem with the scouts is that information was never being passed down to the individual packs/dens, despite multiple requests. Individual contact info is very limited these days due to all the privacy issues in place these days. I'll again be sending out letters this year, hopefully with a better response!

I sent a dozen passes to every fire station in Austin/Roundrock and most sherrif/LEO offices. Only one came in the front door. I kinda wondered if there was some issue with sending "free stuff" to public servants that prevented the passes from making it down to actual officers, though.