POP/ROCK - Jan. 4, 1988

Even though the land itself was bypassed in favor of cash, Shamrock, Tex. is still benefiting from being offered as a prize in a contest on MTV. An Alabama woman who wasn’t even an MTV viewer won the rock music video channel’s MTV Town contest one year ago, but said she couldn’t care less about 100 acres of prime Texas ranchland. Yet Shamrock Mayor Doug Rives said the publicity blitz brought the tiny Panhandle town into the limelight: “When I go to meetings and everything, I wear my green jacket and they really know where Shamrock is now.” MTV had an option on the land but let it revert to the owner, said Rives. Nothing has been done to the land pegged as the MTV town site.