Jul 28, 2008

Pekin shop wins “ultimate makeover”By Robert KernsPekinTimes.com

Pekin, Illinois – A Pekin business will soon get an “ultimate makeover,” compliments of Gift Shop Magazine.

On June 10, Mary Haynes of Pekin, owner of the Kountry Nook gift shop, 212 N. Capitol St., received the news that she was the winner of Gift Shop Magazine’s “Ultimate Makeover Contest” this year. However there is a catch – Haynes didn’t know the contest existed, much less enter it.

Scarlet Coers, manager of the gift shop, said on Wednesday that in May, while at a gift show in Las Vegas, she picked up a copy of Gift Shop Magazine. Reading through the publication, Coers discovered an entry form for the contest.

What caught Coers’ attention was the fact that the winner of the contest would receive $1,000 worth of merchandise furnished by the magazine and a store-wide makeover from the contest’s primary sponsor, OneCoast, a nationwide sales organization that assists vendors in selling their goods to retail organizations throughout the country.

“Mary had already talked about how to improve the shop,” said Coers on Wednesday. “And I thought, ‘What do we have to lose?’ I knew we needed a lot of stuff done and we didn’t know what else to do.”

Without telling her employer, Coers entered the small Pekin gift shop in the contest and waited.

On June 10, Coers received the e-mail she had been hoping for – the one that said, “Gift Shop magazine is proud to announce that Mary Haynes, owner of Kountry Nook in Pekin, IL, is the winner of its 2008 ‘Ultimate Makeover Contest’.”

Read complete article.