Life is full of surprises and, once in awhile, a surprise party or two ... or three.

A Golden Surprise for Fritchey

Fort Smith Golden Corral manager Jon Fritchey has made considerable corporate and personal commitments to a host of local worthy causes and organizations during the past decade. And when he recently accepted an offer by his employer, Golden Partners Inc., to open and manage a new Golden Corral in Rogers, his co-workers, friends and business associates wanted to surprise him with a going away party.

Debra Presson, Fritchey's local catering manager, took on the challenge of both planning the party and catering it without him knowing about it. The only way she could make sure Fritchey would even attend this party was to have his fast-talking friend Chuck Fawcett personally chauffeur Jon to a "special urgent meeting" of committee members for the upcoming Fort Smith Air Show.

"I thought I'd be seeing an F16 or something by now ... you really got me," Fritchey admitted to the crowd that had gathered at the Fort Smith Chamber headquarters to thank him, wish him well in his move and let him know he and his family – Carla, Katie and Cody – would truly be missed.

Fool me twice ... Janie Glover
It seemed highly unlikely that anyone could surprise Janie Glover two years in a row. Last year, when family, friends and coworkers threw a surprise retirement party for the 40-year veteran of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, if she wasn't genuinely caught off guard by the party, the look on her face when she walked in the door certainly fooled me.

When she was named to the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame last month during the Governor's Conference on Tourism in Rogers, Janie's former Chamber boss, Billy Dooly, said the kick to the shins she gave him made him believe that he and all his co-conspirators had kept their secret well.

"She's really hard to surprise because she's so darn nosy," Dooly said with a chuckle.

Janie's daughter and son-in- law, Sara and Eddie Christian Jr., and their daughter, Regan, had to be slipped in and seated on the opposite side of the banquet hall until the video revealing Janie as a new Tourism Hall of Fame member started running. If she had spied her family there she would have known something was up.

Awards should come as no surprise to Janie by now, she has collected so many – including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arkansas Department of Economic Development and an induction into the Arkansas Hospitality Association's Hall of Fame, too.

A surprise with a big check, too.

Gov. Mike Beebe's arrival here last month to deliver a state contribution for the new U.S. Marshals Service Museum to be built on the Fort Smith riverfront was not a surprise. But the amount of the gift was. When the check for $2 million was presented to Beebe to museum project director Sandi Sanders, she and about 300 more enthusiastic Marshals Museum supporters gathered for the occasion cheered the donation.

The $2 million state contribution will help fund the hiring of museum exhibit design and and architectural firms, and the launching of a nationwide fund-raising campaign for the rest of the estimated $25 million to $30 million it will take to get the museum built and operating on the prime piece of downtown property donated to the project by the Westphal family.

Tourism is Arkansas' third largest industry, the governor noted, and since the Marshals Museum will be a national tourism attraction, the taxpayer money donated to the museum will be an investment in economic development that will benefit both the Fort Smith area and the entire state. Many local residents also hope the ongoing museum project will help stimulate private riverfront development around it.

 

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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