JIM
HOOD
Hi Dad & Mom,
I just got your E-mail, sorry I haven't written
or called. We're all fine and well. I'm getting fat, need to lay off the
milk and cookies. I just looked at your updated website and I got an error
message when I first pulled it up. It read as follows - The required
Internet protocol is not installed or the address might be invalid -It
was the following GIF's, D:\1HOOD.GIF, I couldn't see the following pictures:
1995 Jones Family Reunion and Anna Ruth & Beulah. Everything
else pulled up fine and looks great. I tried to send you a message thru
your site but it wouldn't let me send it to you (not sure why?)
Anyway we're coming down this Thursday (Justins
Birthday) We will be staying in Disney at the All Sports Resort for 3 days
of fun at the theme parks, thats what Justin wanted for his birthday. Will
call on Thursday when we get checked in that afternoon. We're getting
ready (Justin says Hi) to watch Kentucky vs Arizona, I think the Wildcats
will win? See you this weekend
Your favorite child
Love Jimmy
Dear Doe and Jeneen,
Well, bowing to ever weakening knees and the
lack of desire to force them to climb stairs, we bought a new house this
week. It is on two levels with the main level, where we will live,
having combination living and dining rooms, kitchen and den, 3 bedrooms,
(one of which I will use as an office), laundry room, and 2 1/2 baths.
The lower level has a large den area, two bedrooms with a full bath, a
kitchenette, and furnace room. One of the bedrooms has your name on it.
The house is on a corner lot, with the backyard filled with
trees and no mowing and the driveway runs down the left side of the house
and across the back of the house to exit onto Hidden Heights Drive. The
lower level, most of which is out of ground opens onto the driveway at
the back of the house. We will move after the first of June, and
plan to sell the house at 1025 Carson St. first, and then sell the brick
house at 1023 Carson St. After June 1 our regular mail address will be
1600 Brentwood Drive, Greeneville, Tenn. Email address remains the same.
I'm sending a low resolution, black and white
picture as an attachment.
Hope all is well with both of you, and that you will live the house
when you come to Greeneville.
Love, Ken
Hi Momma and Daddy,
How are the two of you feeling this beautiful
morning? We are all doing great except Rick has been having problems with
his asthma for the past week. He seems to be doing better, but you never
now.
Mike took his test for Gifted on Friday. He
got 297 out of 300 questions right! He will now have to go through another
series of tests and then we'll know if he's in. Keep your fingers crossed.
I am volunteering at the Safety Harbor Library
one night a week doing Childrens' Story Hour. I start this Monday night.
I wanted to do something on a volunteer basis for reading, you know how
strong I feel about reading. In the fall I will be working one morning
at the school with the Reads program. This is for children that are having
trouble reading and comprehension. I will have to take some training during
the Summer time. I'll keep you posted.
The boys will be signing up for Basketball
on 4-26 at 9:00 A.M. I called to get more information from the City Community
Center, they said it would fill fast so get there early. I asked if I could
camp out on the sidewalk to ensure a spot. They have draft day on 5-31
and the season starts June 14 through August 9. I will let you know when
the games are so you and Momma can plan on seeing a few. We are all very
excited to be getting back into Basketball. The boys play everyday for
1 « to 2 hours a day at the park courts. They are really getting
good.
Well, I put out a 4 page newsletter at my
work a few weeks ago and I am now working on the next one. The Word Perfect
at work has a newsletter program and just plugged the stories in. I wrote
the majority of it, and a few others wrote the rest. I will send you a
copy this week. I wanted to add a little something to the team at Waccamaw
and my new Manager (which is wonderful!) encouraged me to go forward with
it. She sent copies to several people at the Corporate office. One of my
Regionals responded and sent it to the President (not Clinton). Pretty
cool!
We had a great day yesterday! The four of
us went to a park on Lake Tarpon. They have a very nice nature trial along
the banks of the lake. It was beautiful! We then drove to a Chimp Farm.
It is a home for ex-pets and circus monkeys. It was pretty neat but sad.
Most of these monkeys were pets and the owners couldn't handle them so
they bring them to this place. We laughed a lot at the way they communicated
with us.
We were watching and another one dribbling
a basketball. He was pretty good, sign him up ! Then he started doing this
dance where he would jump up and down and slap his feet. We laughed and
laughed. He started making loud monkey noises and running around in circles.
Just then Rick said,"Everyone move, he's going to spit." (The man at the
gate told us if they did this they would spit). Just as we moved back the
monkey took a hand full of poop and threw it at us. It got on my shoe and
a little on Rick's arm. Needless to say we laughed big time! It was a lot
of fun. We then drove over to a beach park and had a late lunch. It was
so relaxing and peaceful. Then Rick and boys threw bread at me and I got
invaded by a few dozen of sea gulls. It was very amusing! For them that
is. We all ran to the car and the seas gulls followed us. Now we have 24
new pets in our yard. Not really. To finish the day, we cooked burgers
on the grill and hung a bird feeder and squirrel feeder.
There are lots of birds out there this morning.
Shadow is sitting here nice but he is drooling a little at the sight of
all the birds. It is going to be another gorgeous day here at Safety Harbor.
I can't wait to see what today holds for us.
I love you both very much! I also miss you
both a bunch!
Love your darlingist daughter, Lori
Dear Big Daddy and Mom Hood:
I had to get substitute teachers for the First
Lady's visit to my school today. What a way to come home from a vacation!
Apparently my principal received notification that she was coming here
on Thursday and she knew we were going to be out of town. There were
10 messages on our answering machine, all but two were for me from school!
Mrs. Clinton was here for about an hour today and I did get to meet her.
The secret service guys used my office and I have to admit it was pretty
exciting. I wish I could have brought Justin over, but the security was
unbelievable, and when she was here no one could come into the building
that hadn't been approved or cleared 48 hours ahead of time. Anyway, I
wanted to thank Mom again for the tea and toast plates and cups. It is
especially meaningful since Jimmy gave them to her when he was younger.
We all had a good time at Disney, but we're
all sore from walking! Thanks again for Justin's birthday cake!
Our school, Kate Sullivan's Web Page address
is: http://www.sullivan.leon.k12.fl.us. Our Tech coordinator
updated it the day Mrs. Clinton was here and took digital pictures and
I think it is pretty neat! Thought you'd be interested. Enjoy!
Richelle Smith Hood
Richelle, Justin and Jimmy live in Tallahassee,
Florida
Hi Momma and Daddy,
How are the two of you feeling today? I'm
doing great! The boys all made straight a's on their report cards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm so proud of them I could just bust! Mike brought 4 B's up to all a's.
I am really proud of this accomplishment. Rick has the next two days off
so they boys and him are going to the beach today and canoeing tomorrow.
Last week when I took the boys to the beach, my lupus acted up. My face
broke out and my chest. I don't want to risk it so soon...maybe next weekend.
I'm going into work on Sunday....they are giving out overtime. I figure
at $15.00 an hour I should take advantage.
All the caterpillars are nice and snug in
their little cocoons. Soon we will have a lot of yellow moths flying around.
The boys and Rick cleaned the Jacuzzi and now as soon as they leave.....I'll
go relax and read! How was the visit with the Jim Hood's? I hope all went
well. I can't believe that Justin is 13! We sent him a card on E-mail,
he will be surprised. I off to pack the guys for the beach..... I love
you both a bunches!
Your Darlingest Daughter, Lori
Hi Momma and Daddy,
Well we got some interesting news on Friday
from school. Mike has been recommended by his teacher to go to "Writers
Camp" this summer. This is a camp sponsored by Pinellas County for kids
in grades 4-8 that show creativity when it comes to writing. Sounds pretty
cool to us. To be eligible you also have to participate well in class and
help other students. The camp is going to be July 7 - 29th. They will go
every day for 3 hours to work with teachers and journalists. Mike has to
submit a copy of one of his stories for final acceptance. Only 55 children
will be selected in Pinellas County. Keep your fingers crossed. I
will keep you posted. I Love you both!
Your darling daughter, Lori
Lori Hood Lyons and family live at Safety Harbor,
Florida. On the east side of Tampa Bay.
Dear Mother and Daddy,
Hello! I received your
newsletter the other day. Thanks! That was sweet of you to send us a copy.
Unfortunately, you were a tad bit off on what Jim and I do as professionals.
I am an Assistant Account
Executive at Michael Parver Associates, Inc. The primary account I work
on is Buena Vista Pictures for the Southeast region. Buena Vista Pictures
includes Walt Disney Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Touchstone Pictures.
I handle public relations, publicity and promotions for each film that
comes out by all of these studios. The primary markets I deal with are
Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Birmingham, Knoxville, Charleston, Greenville,
SC&NC and Savannah. Basically, I make sure that the promotions prior
to opening bring out radio, TV, newspaper and other media to my events
as well as movie-goers.
We always screen a movie
a few days prior to the release date so that press may see it early to
review it on opening day. I also get an appropriate radio station for each
of my markets to give out passes as prizes to listeners on air and at live
remotes. They must fit the audience demographic that the film is targeting.
I also set a local newspaper to run free ads promoting complimentary passes
to the screening. Combined, this gives us a total of at least $7,000.00
worth of promotional value per market.
We sometimes set up
huge stunts to get TV coverage that night. For example, when we held the
"EVITA" screening, we held it on NewYears' Eve in Atlanta and called an
EVE WITH EVITA. We had mariachi bands walking around the theatre lobby,
waiters serving sparkling cider, and even had a Madonna look-a-like come
in. This was covered by two out of four of our local TV crews. Some of
our events even bring out CNN, TNT and TBS, if it's worthy of national
coverage.
I keep up with film
reviews in each of my markets and file reports via cc:Mail with Disney
in Burbank, California. We do tons of reports for them. As long as we get
media coverage, they're happy. I also deal a lot with celebrities when
they come in for P. A. Tours. This entails taking them to various live
TV and radio interviews and having them participate in round table press
discussions with various print media.
A few times a year,
Disney sends me to a movie premiere. I either handle the media coverage,
getting it set up and chaperoning the crews, or handling a celebrity. I
will be going to NY June 9 - 15 for the HERCULES premiere. I can't wait!
I've never been to New York. It'll be a lot of hard work, but at the same
time, a lot of fun!
In addition to Disney,
Dave Tribble (the A.E. on these accounts) and I handle several other accounts
including The Atlanta Auto Show, The Atlanta Boat Show, The Super Show
(the world's largest trade and celebrity show), The Metro Atlanta Automobile
Dealers Association, Life College (International sports events) and the
All-Star Sports Bar and Grill.
We recently were approached
by Dream Works, Steven Spielberg's new movie company, to handle their PR,
publicity, promotions and advertising at our agency. We just found out
that they want to definitely go with us, and the account will be mine and
Dave's. Their first film will be released in this fall. I love working
on the film accounts the best. This one will be exciting, because they're
a new company.
I write a lot of press
releases on each of our events, and make a great deal of phone calls to
the media on a daily basis. These have both made me a much better writer
and has put me in touch with wonderful contacts. I also am the back-up
for the creative advertising designer at our agency. I work on the Mac/Quark
express to lay out ads for our local newspapers. These are mainly ads for
the various films I'm promoting. This is something entirely different,
and I don't want to confuse the issue.
There are many, many
other parts of my job that I'm leaving out, but I wanted you two to somewhat
understand what my job is all about. I've tried to explain it all before,
but I guess it's easier to remember if it's in writing. You can basically
just tell people that I do Public Relations and that I'm a Publicist.
As for Jim, he is an
Associate Editor for a magazine called Health Management Technology. He
writes features, edits and lays out the magazine monthly. He has had the
cover feature the past two months in a row, and will again in the next
issue. The publishing house he works for is called INTERTEC. They publish
several hundred different magazines. This is the second one that he has
worked on. His job is a tad easier to sum up than mine.
Our house is looking
good. This past weekend Jim and Kipp (friend) put down a brick walkway
from the sidewalk to the front door. It looks great. We still have to plant
grass and flowers in the front yard. The house itself still needs a lot
of work, but we don't really mind, it's actually really fun to fix it up
and do it all ourselves. Our plan is to buy it at the end of the year.
As you know, we are leasing to own right now.
The weather has been
beautiful the past week. I hope it's nice this weekend while we're in Savannah.
We're staying with Mia and Matthew Fri. And Sat. Night, and then staying
at a hotel on Tybee Island Sun. And Mon. Nights. Tybee is only 15 miles
from River Street in Savannah. Saint Patrick's Day is that weekend. It
will be a lot of fun. By the way, did I tell you Mia's annulment with the
church went through? She is so happy.
We've been working out
3 times a week at the gym at Jim's office complex. It's funny, I'm gaining
weight since I've been working out. Jim says it's because I'm building
muscle. I don't get it! Oh well, at least it makes me feel better, and
it's a good tension release for both of us.
I spoke with Jimmy on
a few separate occasions this past week. We're planning a trip with them
over Memorial Day weekend. We'll either go to a beach somewhere or white
water rafting in Ocoee, TN. We enjoy their company and always have a great
time. I also got a post card from Lori the other day. She seems to be doing
well. I still haven't sent the boys the things I collected for them at
the Super Show. I figure I'll send it all down for Michael"s birthday.
There's some neat things I have for them. You know, I have Lori's address,
but not her phone number. Please give that to me the next time we talk.
I hope that all is going
well with you in Winter Park. Hopefully, we'll be down there May 16 - 18
for my 10th year class reunion. I'm still working out the details with
Mia and Leslie on what we're going to do. They're charging $100 per person
for the weekend or $45 per person for one night. That is what the final
decision boils down to .... Money! Plan on us coming that weekend, whatever
the case may be! We'll call you soon!
Love, Jennifer
PS Jim's e-mail address is: [email protected]
Jennifer and Jim live in Atlanta.