2007, The First Annual James Dean Fan Gathering in Fairmount, IN

2007, The First Annual James Dean Fan Gathering in Fairmount, IN

logo     Updated July 4, 2007 URL is www.tentativetimes.net/dean/club/gather07.htmlimage

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NOTE: There is another annual gathering called Fan Appreciation Weekend, hosted by David Loehr in Fairmount. This year’s Fan Appreciation Weekend will be the weekend of July 27-29th, 2007.  That weekend is the one with the  James Dean Jeopardy-style Trivia Contest.

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David Loehr (in a Lenny shirt) with Phil Zeigler

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Lenny of Lenny of New York, in his Rebel, Rebel store.

The 2007 First Annual James Dean Remembered fan gathering In Fairmount, Indiana

arose spontaneously, yet it will continue as an annual event. It’s the weekend after Mother’s Day. See you there in 2008!  Make reservations early, because you are fighting every Indy 500 Mile Race fan for a room, and the many colleges are holding their graduations.  You don’t have to be a member of the JDR fan club to join, but when you want to learn more, see the website here.

image One sidelight of this weekend is that I finally found Mildred Dean’s gravesite, which I had hunted for for ten years.  You too can find Jimmy’s mother’s headstone now, with my directions on the Mildred Wilson Dean page

We met at Rebel Rebel on Friday, moving to Steven Payne’s Cafe for supper together.  Payne even put his wife to work, but their 11 week-old baby lounged about.  Their establishment is in Gas City, near the Cracker Barrel and near the former Art Deco James Dean Gallery, now a beautiful civic and rental  meeting center.

The food was wonderful and we could barely tear ourselves away.  Some fans went on to the Giant Bar and Grill at Main & Washington in Fairmount.  (Our traffic light.) People were dancing on the bar and on tables (no one we knew.) Yet despite our advancing years, most of us turned up by 11:00 Saturday morning for the Scavenger Hunt. 

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President Pam Crawford and Vice President Sue Mohamed worked like the Dickens to invent the treasure hunt.  They want to continue this fun-filled activity, but they will make it even harder.  This year’s winners can not compete again, as of this date, May 2007.

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First in with the mostest, scavenger hunt winners Joe Crace of Arkansas, and his hunting partner Kathy Fogg of Kokomo, Indiana and Maine.
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Rachel (Wisconsin) paired up with Dustin Crawford (Arkansas.) to come in third. They were back soonest but due to a typo on the list, had to retrack to get one last item.  The clues were hard, and they will be made harder next time we play this.  (Also, all new, so you can play again even if you won.)

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We got take-out at the Giant for lunch, “world’s largest breaded pork tenderloins,” and then we wondered why we ate the whole thing, plus french fries,  when we were going to a monumental buffet in a few hours!

We got on our feet and noticed that we all had an overwhelming need to shop in the afternoon, so we did,

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and then we met at Ryan’s Steak House in Marion, Indiana for their all-you-can-eat steak/ribs/fish/chicken/salad/dessert etc. buffet. 

Now see page 2 with more photos of the weekender
Wow, can you imagine the fun we would have if Niecy Nash came to one of our gatherings!

LINKS OUT

Be sure to see the image new page about Jimmy’s mother’s grave

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Corrections go to secop@parlorcity.com and are sometimes actually corrected.