Coert Sisters Got Milk, First Prize in Contest

By DAWN HOBBS

July 6, 1997 12 AM PT

Sisters are great to share secrets with, but the one thing the Coert sisters can’t keep to themselves is milk.

Or so say Erica, Amber and Andrea in the advertisement that won them a first prize in the “Milk It!” contest inviting Rolling Stone magazine readers to send in a photo of themselves with a two-sentence caption describing why they drink milk.

Milk it they did--the Ventura sisters’ white mustaches came out of a paint can.

But it appears that the grand prize and other first-place winners did so as well.

“We drink milk at least once a day, but it’s not even milk on our mustache--it was paint we used,” said Erica, 18, who works at Long Board’s Grill.

Andrea, 26, was surfing the Web one day when she stumbled across the advertisement asking Rolling Stone readers to show their milk mustaches.

“After my sister saw it on the computer, she said we should enter it,” Erica said. “My sisters and I are really close and my dad always takes pictures, so we just did it.”

Andrea, who works for the Ventura County superintendent of schools, was first to find out the sisters had won.

“We didn’t think we would win--we were surprised,” Erica said. “My parents think it’s cool, too. They were real excited.”

Amber, 24, had gotten in on the act because she was home from college in San Diego to spend her summer working with children with Down’s syndrome in Camarillo.

“We went to the dentist the other day and he framed our picture and gave one to us and then hung one up in his office,” Erica said. “I think it’s funny.”

Their ad appeared in the June 26 issue of Rolling Stone. For their trouble, the trio won a portable CD player and a $25 certificate for CD purchases.

And what will they get?

“We haven’t even decided who gets what yet because there’s three of us and only one prize,” Erica said.

The National Fluid Milk Processing Promotion Board, the creator of the award-winning “Milk, Where’s Your Mustache?” campaign, sponsored the contest.

Its Web site is at https://www.whymilk.com/