ASSOCIATION ON THE EARIE
On The Earie Tom Powell, OABA News Ambassador B
elated Happy Birthday to one of the few park owners who is an ac- tive OABA member, Dick Knoebel. One of the hardest working guys in the business, Knoebel, my good friend, a former proud Marine and graduate of Lehigh University with a degree in engineering, turned 80 on April 28. When Christine and I called to wish him a Happy Birthday, he lamented it was raining and cold for Sunday busi- ness at Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, Pa., but Saturday’s crowds were big. They usually are.
The crowds here in Nashville for the NFL Draft were enormous, larger than anybody could ever have dreamed of. Country music stars, such as Jake Owen, Blake Shelton, Chris Young, Dierks Bentley, and Tyler Swift were all over the place, and the College Gameday TV crew of Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and Rece Davis did their broadcasting live in town. I thought of a younger Swift performing at Knoebels a long time ago. I was also reminded of one of many occasions when J. Bruce McKinney and Franklin Shearer hosted us at Hershey Park and Brittany Spears was on stage. McKinney, president and CEO, presented her with the biggest Hershey candy bar I have ever seen. Dick later told me he’d like to book the super star now for what he paid her way back then.
It was Pat Garrett of Strausstown, Pa., who once told me Taylor Swift’s father asked him how he could help move his daughter’s career forward. Garrett, an artist himself, who performs with his wife, Suzy Dalton, famously said, “Las Vegas has the bars. Detroit has the cars, and Nashville has the stars.” The next time Garrett, who owns his own radio station (so he can play his own records), his own amphitheater, (so he can open for such acts as Willie Nelson), and a sheepskin business, (so he can make
8 OABA ShowTime Magazine | JUNE 2019
a decent living), heard from Mr. Swift, he had moved his family to Music City. The rest is history. Garrett performs at Knoebels for the 35th year in a row on July 4, 5, and 6. I’d love to be there. The NFL estimated the crowd to be more than 600,000 for the three days of the draft, like a Super Bowl. I believe that Dick’s friendship with the late Steve Swika of S&S Amusements, Jermyn, Pa., was what first got him involved with OABA. Knoebel is always a fixture at the Gibown trade show. Rene and Judy Piche’s son, Mark, said he had a very good run at this year’s Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, book- ing two food stands, one for beignets and a grab. One was refurbished by Uni-Glide, and Piche said, “they did a nice job in a timely manner.” He and his wife, Susan, were aided by their son, Hunter, 22, and his fiancée, Abby Voss, plus two key managers, Mark Rajenen and John Roche.
Since he often sets up four stands, Piche hopes to get some help from the H-2B Visa program. “I applied last year, but it was too late. I applied for six to eight this year, using J&J for the paper- work, but I figure I’ll be lucky if I get six. At least, I hope I do.” Mark’s next spot is the Delaware State Fair, Harrington, July 18–27. Other dates include the Wisconsin State Fair, Eastern States Exposition (The Big E), West Springfield, Mass.; Fryeburg, Maine; and North Carolina State Fair, Raleigh. “My dad set me up with a sweet route,” said Mark. The talent lineup at Delaware, according to Danny Aguilar, assistant GM, includes Sugarland, Dan + Shay, Bethel Music, Darci Lynne, and Brantley Gilbert. Al Slaggert, who booked demolition derbies for many years before retiring to Las Vegas with his wife, Mary Ann, called me with a couple good stories. The first reminded him of his and my old pal, Monsignor Robert J. McCarthy, The Carny
Priest from Watertown, N.Y., who died last year at the age of 99. Slaggert always assisted Father Mac when he would say Mass during the Showmen’s League of America’s Memorial Service each year in Las Vegas. He and Mary Ann were on a cruise in Australia recently, where the Catholic priest was doing consecration in the middle of what would normally be a disco dance floor. All of a sudden, the lights came on and music started blaring. “It made me wonder what Father Mac would have done, since he said Mass in show tents, open fields, on the tops of Merry-Go-Rounds, and anywhere you could imagine.” I didn’t have to imagine him doing it at least twice at Johnny Hobbs’s Nashville Palace in Nashville. An announcement was made that Mass was about to begin and those at the bar could remain there or participate. You should have seen the stunned looks on some of those patrons. The perspicacious, peri- patetic padre refused to have a collec- tion taken, but Hobbs and a few more of us made sure that didn’t happen and he wound up with a tidy sum.
Slaggert also called to alert me about a movie made for television that is titled The Day the Circus Did Not Come to Town. It will premiere at a theater in Peru, Ind., on July 19, during the town’s Circus Week Celebration. The movie is about the June 22, 1918 train wreck in Hammond, Indiana, of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus where 86 were killed and 127 hospital- ized. The victims are buried in the SLA’s Showmen’s Rest. Among those appear- ing in the movie besides Slaggert, are Jeff Blomsness, Rick Haney, Guy Leavitt, Jean Brake, and Father John Vakulskas. Slaggert said it is open to the public. Speaking of Father John, he had sent me an email regarding my March 8 surgery that still has me looking like Frankenstein, or Bela Lugosi, who played Count Dracula, at least on my forehead.
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