For those of you that have read the about us pages, you already know that SimplyFredericksburg is owned and operated by Crystal and I (Joe). You also know that we run this as a community service and that the idea for the site came out of our own quest for information about the area.  One of our biggest down falls is lack of advertising. ( We do hear those of you who remind us.  We appreciate your input!) We have been working on this but it is very expensive. We do advertise in some stores downtown, in several brochures in the Visitors Center and in the Front Porch Magazine. We have sent dozens of Press Releases to the local newspapers, cable TV channels and radio stations. They like to use our ideas and we have "friendly" competitions to see who has the better ideas, but they have never thrown us a bone. Most of the media won't touch us. We have been told it is because we are only a passing fad, we will disappear in the future like all the others. Well, all we can say is that they don't know us very well. Crystal and I are here to stay. We finally received a little coverage from the media in the month of July, 2000.

The Newspaper
On the evening of July 21 while going through the days email, I came across an email from Joby Nahas. Joby is a reporter for the Free Lance-Star newspaper and she wanted to write a story on SimplyFredericksburg. Crystal and I became very excited about our first possible newspaper story. We talked it over at our nightly business meeting and decided to go for it. We e-mailed Joby back and scheduled an appointment to meet for lunch at Spanky's. (Spanky's is one of our favorite restaurants and our friends know to get us gift certificates as gifts). 

On our way downtown, we stopped off to find the old Gunnery Spring for a future "Off the beaten path" story for the site. We took many photos of the old spring and then headed to town. Once in town, Crystal and I walked around down town taking pictures as we went along (a normal thing for us) until it was time to meet with Joby. First we stopped off at FUNdaMENTAL's and talked with our good friend Barbara Brock. She was excited for us about the pending news story. After we left FUNdaMENTAL's we strolled down to the Fredericksburg Visitors Center and poked our head in then stopped at Beck's Antiques to have a short chat with Mayor Bill Beck. He too was excited about the pending news story. After 30 minutes of talking with Mayor Beck, it was time to head to Spanky's. We arrived early and sat at our table awaiting Joby. (Crystal and I were both nervous about the meeting, since it was our very first news article). Joby arrived shortly after we ordered our drinks and we promptly got down to business. We talked about the web site, our goals for the site and then about each of us. The overall experience went well. 

Joby emailed us on several occasions to get some more information from us. Then she setup a time to have our photo taken.  We choose the Fredericksburg Fair, since we would be there taking photos for the Fair and for our site. Bob Martin (a photographer for the Free Lance-Star) met us at the fair office at 6:00 PM and he requested that he be allowed to follow around and take candid photos of us taking photos of the fair. It started off being very fun, then started to get old rather quickly. We turned it back into fun again by focusing our lens on Bob taking photos of us. That made the nerves calmer again and we started to ease up. The attendants at many of the rides had begun to recognize our faces (we had been at the fair every evening taking photos for our site and for the fair's site). During our photo shoot with Bob, several of the ride attendants came up to us and watched us taking photos. We tried not to focus on the attendants, since we wanted to focus our attention on the rides and the local people having fun. 

After making the rounds of the fair, we met up with Pamela Dickerson (Miss Fredericksburg Fair 2000) and started to talk with her when the weather started to turn nasty. Bob decided to take off (he had finished his photos of us and was looking for something unique to take at the fair), we followed Bob's lead and headed to the car to get our camera and equipment into the trunk of the car before the rain started. We made it just in time. 

However, we did not leave the fair, we had a commitment to take photos of the wrestling match later that evening. Now the pressure of the article was gone (so we thought), the rain was letting up and the wrestling was ready to start. I set up and filmed the matches, while Crystal and our son watched from under their plastic sheets

The pressure of the article did not hit us again until late Friday night. We knew that in the morning the article would appear but we did not get a chance to see an advance copy of it. Plus we were hoping that the photos turned out well. After a restless night, we picked up the paper and there was the article - front page of the business section. The article looked good and everything was correct. Then off to the on-line edition of the article. The words were the same, but there were several mistakes in this issue. Somehow the web site address was wrong on the on-line version. Email came in from our friends and site visitors telling us that the article was great and that the overnight improvements to the site looked great too. They were, however, upset about the spelling mistake in the web site address in the on-line version. 

The traffic on the web site started to increase and more than doubled in the days to follow. Overall, the article was a very good thing for SimplyFredericksburg. We however, were hoping the article would increase the community involvement in the web site. Many people write us and tell us how they love the site but very few actually take the time to assist us when we are asking for help. The limited staff (Crystal, myself and sometimes friends) at SimplyFredericksburg cannot know everything about the area, nor do we want to. We try to answer all the questions that come into the web site, those we don't have the answers for, we forward to local residents that may know the answers. That is where SimplyFredericksburg can use the most help. 

The on-line version of the article was located in the archives of the Free Lance-Star's web site (since removed). Now on-line courtesy of the Way Back Machine

Television Coverage 
The next chapter in the newspaper article saga, is Prestige (now Adelphia) Vision 3. We received a phone call from Prestige Vision 3 asking us if we would be interested in having them do a news story on us. They said they saw the article in the paper and wanted to interview us for a potential story. We set an appointment to meet Ms. Melissa Schreiber at the old Gunnery Spring site. Once again our nerves were at full tilt. We were more nervous about this meeting, due to it being Television and it would be our faces on the TV. The day of the meeting, we arrived at the old Gunnery Springs site about 30 minutes before Melissa. During that time we shot photos for a future "Off the Beaten Path" story. When Melissa arrived, we talk off camera for about 10 minutes while she set up the equipment. 

Prestige (Adelphia) is somewhat like SimplyFredericksburg where it is usually a one person show. Melissa was the person behind and in front of the camera, that proved to be a difficult task. First up was Crystal. Melissa asked her some questions while I video taped the entire interview. After Crystal, it was my turn. Crystal filmed the interview while Melissa asked me some of the same questions. 

Following my interview was one of Crystal again. Melissa was concerned that the microphone was not working on Crystal's first interview. This time around, Crystal forgot to remove her sunglasses (no big deal to anyone but her). After the interviews, Melissa followed us around while we shot photos of the spring. Once all that was finished, she filmed the intro to the interviews. This took some skills on Melissa's part since she had to be behind the camera and in front at the same time. Once again we filmed the entire process. We will make the video tape available in the future, once we have the bugs worked out of our digitizing process. Prestige/Adelphia did a very nice piece on SimplyFredericksburg and Gunnery Springs. Crystal and I were very happy with the final footage. Our only regret was we wished Vision 3 had a larger audience. The emails came in and so did the phone calls, but in less numbers then last batch. Would we do it all again? Most definitely. 
 

Click each photo for a larger version

Radio
If there is a path of progression to this, then the radio must be next. We have not received any calls or emails from any of the radio stations yet. Though we have been on the radio for other things, just not representing SimplyFredericksburg. Who knows?