West Texas Town Is Bush’s ‘Peoria’ : Lubbock Leaps to Exploit Sudden Fame

Call it the Heartland. Call it Middle America. Call it America’s Hometown.

But, please, call--especially if you are a big-time journalist who can put this High Plains town in the national news.

Imbued with a new pride--and a hunger for publicity--since President Bush mentioned Lubbock as a barometer of American opinion, civic leaders here want the Washington press corps to make a habit of asking Bush what Lubbock thinks of national issues, from the minimum wage to arms control.

Ad Promotes City

“D.C., Phone Home,” was the headline on a full-page ad Lubbock officials ran in the Washington-Baltimore edition of the Wall Street Journal. The ad marked the start of a campaign to promote this city of 187,000 as everybody’s hometown.

It ended with the city’s new slogan: “Look. Listen. Lubbock. Now.”

“President Bush has really given us something we can rally around,” said Randy Christian, a local advertising executive who helped think up the slogan.

The city is buying advertising, buttons and T-shirts to capitalize on all the free publicity Bush handed it.

Fame came to the city when Bush told a nationally televised news conference about a conversation with an old friend in Texas who had told him “all the people in Lubbock think things are going just great.”

Bush’s story took officials here by surprise, but it did not take them long to see they were getting the kind of publicity money could not buy.

Leaders Go to Work

After reporters stopped calling and the crews from “Good Morning, America,” took their lights and cameras out of the local pancake house, Lubbock’s leaders went to work devising ways to stay in the spotlight.

“We felt that this was an opportunity we should take advantage of,” said Mayor B. C. (Peck) McMinn, who treasures a handwritten thank-you note from Bush for his comments about Lubbock residents’ support of the President. “It’s just been feeding on itself.”

McMinn even got a congratulatory call from James Maloof, mayor of the town made famous by the Richard M. Nixon Administration’s “Will it play in Peoria?”

“All of a sudden we were propelled into the limelight,” said Lee Stafford, executive vice president of the city’s industrial development board.

He hopes greater awareness of Lubbock might bring the West Texas city more jobs, tourists and conventions. City officials are not sure what the whole promotional campaign will cost. They spent $6,100 on the Wall Street Journal ad.

Attention Spawns Envy

It is too early to look for results, but the attention showered on this farming town already has other mid-sized cities envious.

“There are a lot of other Texas cities that want me to get the President to mention their cities,” said Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.).

While Lubbock does not boast about its crime rate, with a burglary incidence that is among the highest in the nation, or the dust that swirls through the streets from the cotton fields each spring, being America’s Heartland makes the city easier to sell as a location, Stafford said. “We’re not just another city out looking for new business. We’re Lubbock, and that’s a unique term now.”

Others express a more altruistic desire--that Lubbock’s example will remind politicians the “real America” knows and cares what is going on in Washington.

“It doesn’t take a genius to realize that there are many cities in America just like Lubbock,” said the ad. “And how they think and how they feel about national and international issues is a barometer our leaders ‘inside the Beltway’ should never ignore.”