FLASHBack 55 Years Ago This Month
Women are a large, invaluable facet of today’s lumber
industry, making great strides from the business covered 55 years ago this month, in April of 1966, by The California Lumber Merchant. A half-century ago, the industry was nearly exclusively male and, although there were a handful of pioneering lumberwomen, females were generally relegated to subservient roles, just as in many other areas of society. Consider some of the coverage of 55 years ago: • Speedboat racer-turned-lumber dealer Bill Cooper hatched a doozy of a promotion to celebrate the grand opening of his new Los Angeles home center: a “Win a Real Live Girl” contest. Cooper said he was looking for something more novel than “the musty old cliche of a ribbon cutting ceremony followed by coffee and cake for the customers.” Instead, he advertised: “Win a real live girl! All yours for five days! Nothing to buy, just come see Cooper’s fabulous new store and sign the register. If you don’t need another person around the house, you can have $250 worth of free merchandise instead.” “Miss Grand Prize” was Carol Andreson, a professional model, actress and nurse, who was hired to appear at the opening and then spend supervised time with the winner, unless he wanted the merchandise instead. As it turned out, the 64-year-old furniture plant worker who won chose the model. News of the promotion was picked up by all the local newspapers and 10 radio stations. The result? The store was jammed throughout the four-day grand opening period, averaging 4,500 visitors a day. They also came to buy, attested to by the fact that 45% of the trade during the opening was in cash sales.
“MISS GRAND PRIZE” in a Los Angeles lumberyard’s Grand Opening giveaway, Carol Andreson, reached the height of her acting career with Dean Martin in Rough Night in Jericho (1967).
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The Merchant Magazine n
April 2021
THE APRIL 1966 issue featured Rockport Redwood Co. on its cover. The company drew from its 30,000 acres of Mendocino County timberlands until 1968, when they were sold to GeorgiaPacific. The operations were spun off into Louisiana-Pacific in 1973 and purchased by the Mendocino Redwood Co. in 1998.
For her sake, the exposure helped Andreson in her burgeoning acting and modeling career. She appeared on dozens of TV series throughout the 1960s and did not have to return to nursing (except for frequently playing a nurse, including on Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby, M.D., and the Jerry Lewis film The Disorderly Orderly). Cooper Lumber ’s next marketing brainstorm? Adopting the slogan “Even nicer than a warm puppy.” • Copeland Lumber Yards, at the time the Pacific Northwest’s largest and fastest-growing chain with 86 yards in Washington, Oregon and California, held its annual meeting and invited the wives of the branch managers to attend. But while the men were attending the business sessions, the ladies were enjoying a preview showing of Good Taste in Decorating, a 25-minute film produced by Copeland’s exclusive paint vendor, Boysen Colorizer. Prior to the showing, the wives were served tea and refreshments by Mrs. Copeland. • The Los Angeles Hoo-Hoo Club held its annual Valentines Day dinner dance—one of only two events all year that females were permitted to attend. (Perhaps as a consolation prize, a few pages later The Merchant ran an ad soliciting members in the fledgling National HooHoo-Ette Club (“Attention: Lumbergals!”) The Valentines party crowd was entertained by singer Karen Valentine, who was born in logging town Sebastopol, Ca., competed in the Miss California pageant, and studied drama at UCLA. To that point, Ms. Valentine’s television credits consisted of one shot as a backup singer/dancer on The Ed Sullivan Show. But shortly thereafter, she was hired to appear as the hostess, known as The Resident Dream Girl, on the Chuck Barris game show Dream Girl of ’67. That quickly led to Room 222 and her own series, Karen.
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