Reporter’s Notebook
RICK HOLTZ
I love games and contests.
Whenever my family would go to an amusement park my kids always go through the carnival games. For the most part they still do not have a concept of money.
My oldest son, Calvin, is 11-years-old and he is starting to understand more, but he is still at that age where if he has a dollar he wants to spend it. Penny and Charlie think that if they find a dime on the ground outside Wal-Mart they can go in and buy anything they want.
Don’t get me wrong; I was very much the same way as a child. I would umpire over the summer with my dad. After our softball game was over and we were paid I always wanted to run through a drive-thru for a snack.
Even in college, I remember buying an acoustic guitar and a djembe. I never learned to play either one and we got rid of both a couple of years ago. But at the time I thought they were great purchases.
Do you remember when Mc-Donalds held their Monopoly promotions? They still do it now, but now you have to buy specific food to get the game pieces. I remember years ago they had the game pieces where you would go in and be able to get the pieces and it didn’t matter what food you bought, if you bought any at all.
Those are the kind of contests I love — chance to win without spending any money. At my old newspaper we had a bingo promotion that I came up with. We printed bingo cards and inserted them in the newspaper and then we had two or three bingo balls each day in the newspaper on different ads.
We gave away a cash prize to a person who filled their entire card. We had a drawing of the first five people to turn in their card completely filled. People went crazy for a 1-in-5 chance to win. They were watching the newspaper every day and as the contest went on and more bingo balls were out there the intensity of the game increased.
We had little old ladies come to the office to make sure they didn’t miss that one ball they were missing on their card.
Those are the kind of contests I like. Reader involvement.
We want to do something like that here at the Polk County News. Not a bingo game. Not a month long contest. All you have to do is send us an email.
The Polk County News offers all subscribers FREE access to our online website and e-edition. A lot of you out there have signed up. We want to help even more of you do it.
Send us an email at polkcountynews@ yahoo.com and we will link your print subscription to your FREE online account to our website. Each week you will get one email telling you the e-edition has been published.
Our e-edition is just like our print newspaper, but in full color. All of the pictures you see in our newspaper are in color online. In print, sometimes they are too dark and hard to see. That’s never an issue online.
The other benefit is you get your newspaper a few days early. Why wait for your mail on Thursday when you can read your newspaper with your morning coffee on Wednesday?
This may feel like one of those infomercials you would find in the middle of the night on your favorite TV station, BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
We have made an effort to step-up our sports game here at the Polk County News. Each day we are putting recaps of sporting events from the night before. So in addition to getting your newspaper days earlier than all your friends you can also follow your favorite sports team throughout the week on our website, www.polkcountynews. net.
And it’s included with your subscription already!
Send us one email and we will get your account linked. We will set up the username and send you a password that you can change as soon as you login the first time.
Everyone who emails us will be entered to win a gift card. If you have already signed up with us for the online account I want you to email us too. We will enter you into the contest also.
And if you are not a subscriber and pick up your newspaper each week at the gas station or grocery store, subscriber and save. And then email me and enter the contest.
This contest will run until the end of October. We will announce the winner in a future edition of the Polk County News.
These are my favorite kind of contests. A chance to win for doing something I was already going to do.
Email us today!
Rick Holtz is a reporter for the Polk County News. Find his column, Reporter’s Notebook, from time to time in the newspaper and online at www.polkcountynews.net.
