Dear Family and Friends,
Tim and I recently returned from our yearly Mary Kay National Sales Director trip ... this year the trip was five days in New York City followed by a week-long cruise to Bermuda.
As always, the trip was fantastic ... a Dinner Cruise on the Star of America yacht, tours, limos to every event, a Broadway show (Wicked!), shopping, etc ... but this year there was a new twist. On Monday, May 9th we had dinner at the ABC Studios of Good Morning America. The studios are on Times Square, located at the merge of Broadway and 7th Avenue at 43rd Street. This is the world-famous spot where you see the "New Year's Eve ball drop". We were entertained in two large rooms, one has all of the "sets" for living, kitchen, etc, and the other is where the news desks back up to the windows overlooking the Square. The news desk room had been totally cleared out to make way for our beautifully set dining tables. After visiting for an hour or so, we sat down to "dine in elegance". Tim and I were fortunate enough to be sharing a table with RON TRAMMELL (our incredibly talented "events guru" at Mary Kay) and his wonderful wife, MARCELLE (Director of Information Resource Group for Mary Kay). Before we could even take a bite, Ron suggested we look out the windows and we literally couldn't believe our eyes!
The Reuters Building is on the corner facing the ABC studios. You can see the perspective of the Square behind us in our group picture, and in the street-scene picture of me with DAVID HOLL, our President and COO, and his truly lovely wife SUZANNE. On the 3-part Reuters sign we could see Mary Kay Signature Pink appearing. The tall narrow top sign is about 15 stories high and read vertically: MARY KAY with a background of our stylized hearts. The rectangular middle sign is about 6 stories high and read: Mary Kay's Elite Inner Circle National Sales Directors. The square lower sign is about 4 stories high with two additional panel on each side of it. On the panels there were pictures scrolling ... OUR NSD PICTURES, with our names and home towns. It took 13 signs just to complete the scrolling "wrap" of our pictures! Ron had received the OK from David for this incredible surprise for us, and, believe me, we were surprised. So were the people on the street ... it was literally stopping traffic ... and it went on for almost 45 minutes!
There is no way to express the excitement and appreciation we ICNSDs felt at this surprise from our Mary Kay Corporate leaders. We have always known that we have a "dreams-come-true" company, but we would certainly never have "dreamed this up"! Thank you David and Ron, and ALL who help us make our Mary Kay dreams come true on a daily basis.
As Tim said to me, "Who would ever have dreamed of your picture in Times Square when 33 years ago you were selling fabric for $1.25 an hour in Big Spring, Texas?!" Enough said!
XO,
Pat Danforth, SNSD