As we approach the end of August, we are reminded of one of Albion’s most unusual promotional events “gone wrong” that occurred on Friday, August 17. 1962 at 9:30 am. On that date, the Albion Chamber of Commerce was sponsoring a “ball drop” as part of its “Back to School” promotion in downtown Albion. 850 light styrofoam balls were dropped by Sam Friia (Albion merchant) and Don Derr (advertising salesman for the Albion Evening Recorder) from a small airplane high above Superior St. 200 had numbers on them which were good for prizes at participating merchants.
When the balls were dropped at 9:30 a.m., Albion youth ran up and down Superior St. trying to retrieve them. There was confusion and scuffling in the crowd. It soon became apparent that some of the balls were landing on the roofs of downtown buildings rather than in the street where they were intended. There were complaints that the roofs of at least three buildings were accessed by youngsters trying to retrieve some of the balls there. This is despite a pre-event warning published in the Recorder: “It will not be permissible to get up on the roofs to recover any stray balls.” Some of our ingenious youth however, had figured out a way how to get “up there,” when the time came, and they did.
Frantic merchants didn‘t want their flat roofs destroyed by trampling feet, nor did they want any child to fall off the roofs. The Albion Chamber of Commerce committee quickly met, and decided that that ball drop for the next morning, Saturday, August 18 was to be accomplished by throwing the balls off the roof of the J. C. Penney store at 301 S. Superior St. Yours truly was there with my left-handed catcher mitt and I remember this event distinctly. It was still chaos, and youth were fighting one another for those balls. Those in front had the best pickings as most of the balls fell directly right onto the sidewalk from the roof above.
From our Historical Notebook this week we present an incredible photo of the plane circling above while Albion youth appear to “run for their lives” below on the bricks of S. Superior St. watching for those balls. This event was not covered live by WALM radio, nor by WKRP either. How many of our readers remember the ball drops, either by plane, or at J. C. Penney’s?
