Postcards and T-shirts discussed at Hot Springs meeting

HOT SPRINGS  - Members of the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce convened last week for the organization’s monthly meeting.

For the October chamber meeting, which was held on Thursday, Oct. 2, at noon, the emphasis on the proceedings focused on getting the word out about the town of Hot Springs.

At the forefront of this initiative to plug the town to potential visitors were a series of t-shirts and postcards with the town’s motto of Limp in Leap Out, in reference to healing mineral waters located in town.

Both the t-shirts and the postcards will feature original artwork used by the town to attract visitors during the 1920s, when the popularity of the healing local waters was at its height.

“The design harkens back to the 1920s,” President of the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce Leslee Smith said.  

The vintage design was scanned from an original postcard from the era provided to the chamber by Norah Potts of the Larue-Hot Springs Museum.

According to Smith, with a quota of 48 t-shirts the price of the shirts would break down to a total of $8.35 a piece.     

The committee decided to put the original artwork on the back of the t-shirts and discussed possible colors to order the t-shirts.

Sage green, aqua blue, yellow and red ended up being the four t-shirt colors the chamber decided on before continuing on with the business of the meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting the group’s discussion focused on the need of putting signage up on area highways to attract more visitors to downtown Hot Springs.

“It just tells them there is something over here. We just need them to turn,” Smith said.

The chamber went over a variety of possible locations including an available sign at the junctions of U.S. Route 93 and Highway 28 in Elmo and a few locations near the junction of Highways 28 and 77 just outside downtown Hot Springs.

Smith emphasized the importance of using big colored images on the potential billboards in order to maximize the advertising effort’s effectiveness.

“If you make your graphics to small people aren’t going to see it,” Smith said.  

The town’s chamber recapped the Summer Art Camp hosted by the Hot Springs Artist Society in August.

The annual summer camp was held over the course of one week at Towanda Gardens.

This year’s camp featured several members of the travelling vaudeville troop, New Old Time Chautauqua, who brought their unique style of entertainment to Hot Springs one week before the art camp was held.

Members of the Chautauqua who partook in the art camp imparted some of their skills to area children, teaching them a variety of skills from juggling, musical instrumentation and acrobatics.

“The arts camp was beyond wonderful. It was super spectacular with the Chautauqua there,” Smith said.

Before adjourning for the afternoon, Rachel Hulce, a member of Cowgirls Kickin’ Cancer announced the organization would be presenting a check from the group’s fundraising at the Sanders County Fair to the Cancer Network of Sanders County at the network’s annual Brats, Hops and Grapes gala in Plains.