Red buses and Park pix
TOM HESS / Hungry Horse News
Watching this year's Rose Parade on RFD TV with Peter and Edwina Bergen of the North Fork — my first trip ever into that wondrous forestland — I saw on the small screen one of the restored red Glacier Park buses from the 1920s.
Glacier Park Transport Co. Bus No. 39 carried Rose Parade President Ronald H. "Corky" Conzonire and his wife, Marilyn.
A day earlier, the bus owner, Bruce Austin, e-mailed the Billings Gazette from the decorating tent, saying that "25 or 26 visitors tell me that they will visit the park this year with their families, rather than go elsewhere."
On Monday, Austin e-mailed me, confirming that response to the bus before and after the event "was unfailingly positive, (with) a great deal of interest in the Glacier Centennial, as well."
This year's Rose Parade wasn't the first that included a Glacier bus. The Hungry Horse News reported on bus No. 94's appearance in the 2006 event, carrying that year's parade president, Lenora Barron.
But what makes this year's 5.5-mile ride in Pasadena so special is that it called attention to the Park's centennial. And the fact that so many people mentioned to Austin their desire to see the Park this year was a reminder that the centennial likely will bring many more families to our community than we've seen in recent years.
Further evidence of heightened interest is the response to a series of Park photographs by Hungry Horse News photojournalist Chris Peterson. In addition to his work with our newspaper, Chris also edits a quarterly periodical, Glacier Park Magazine — available at Super 1, Smith's Food & Drug, and other Flathead Valley locations.
On the magazine's Web site, www.glacierparkmagazine.com, Chris published the results of a unique enterprise — one photograph a day from 100 straight days in the Park last summer.
On Dec. 2, the Boston Globe selected 50 of the photographs and posted them on The Big Picture, a news photo blog. The blog's editor, Alan Taylor, who once worked in Spokane but has never visited the Park, told me the photos 'struck a chord" with readers all over the world.
If you have the time to visit www.boston.com/bigpicture, go to the December 2009 archives, scroll to the bottom and find "100 Days in Glacier National Park." Click on that headline, and wait for the photos to download. Depending on the speed of your connection, it may take awhile. See which ones you like best. I'll let you know mine: It's number 22, which seems to be the favorite of a lot of other people, too. But I won't give away any more details.
The photos elicited more than 220 comments, and Taylor says a good rule of thumb is that for every comment, 100 people have viewed the page.
The photos also went "viral" — meaning that dozens of other blogs linked to the photos. Among them are pages in Brazil and Indonesia.
Consider what you might do to help draw attention to the Park's anniversary. Maybe you don't own a 1925 red bus, and you don't have time to spend 100 straight days in the Park. But maybe you have a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, or a bunch of out-of-state friends with e-mail addresses. Check out the schedule of centennial events at www.glaciercentennial.org. Let people know how much our area has to offer them in 2010. And let's make them feel as welcome as you have made me feel.