Presents "The Clarion Reunion"

Clarion, Iowa is the hometown of bear artist Steve Schutt. We at Intercal caught up with Steve on a recent day, and he took time out of his busy schedule to send us a brief history of the event’s background. He relates:

As I traveled around the United States attending bear events to sell my "guys" from 1985 to 1988, the Artist Bear Community became a big part of my life...an extended family! Some of the best friendships of my life are gifts bear making has brought into my life.

Traveling about I realized over time that "Iowa" didn’t register much excitement in people’s minds. Many friends were amazed that I actually liked living there! Others confused it with Idaho...or Ohio. And, at the same time, the people of Clarion were trying to figure out just what, exactly, a Teddy Bear Artist could be. And...when I quit my teaching job in 1988 to devote all my time to the bears, the local bank president became very interested in the profession. I’m sure that my recently acquired home mortgage with his bank spurred on his interest.

Co-Festival Director Larry Guth & Clarion's own "Hat Lady" Alvina Sellers are busy planning for our guests in 2000!	I really like where I live! There are big advantages to living in small places. I knew the bear business was for me, so, in order to share my town with my teddy bear friends, and to help Clarionittes understand just what it was I did for a living, I approached the Clarion Chamber of Commerce in 1988 with the idea of hosting a Teddy Bear Festival here.
They agreed to help with advertising, let me use their business machines and covered the event under their insurance umbrella if I agreed to make the event part of their annual "Festival In The Park".

Some friends, relatives and myself worked on our part of the event over a two year period of time. I helped plan several puppetry conventions through the years and learned the nuts and bolts of planning a festival working for the Puppeteers of America. This past experience gave us a good working model and a strong sense of what we needed to do. I called in all past favors and was able to put together an impressive list of artists for the salesroom. All the work on the event was done strictly on a volunteer basis. No one was paid a dime and the planning committee agreed that any profits generated would go 100% to charity. We picked June 1990 as the target date!

Our biggest challenge was attracting collectors to the event! Iowa had very few in those days. I traveled to more than 30 Teddy Bear Events in 1989 trying to interest collectors in the event. People must have liked the "Host Family Housing" concept, and that’s a good thing. Clarion only had one small motel at that time! The committee housed collectors with a local family for free if the collectors would promise to buy two bears in the showroom. It was a very simple idea or concept! We would cut down on the collectors housing expenses, and....they could use the saved money to buy bears. The festival committee worked hard, the City of Clarion organized a "Clean-Up, Fix-Up, Paint-Up" campaign, families prepared for their guests, businesses decorated their windows and the Garden Club planted up a storm. It was a great morale builder for Clarion’s community spirit.....and about 650 persons took a chance and signed up for the event.

The time arrived and the weekend was jammed with activities including live music and entertainment in the park, a parade, homemade pie booths, a quilt show, antique clothing displays, exhibits of tractors, antique cars and gas engines....even a street dance and pitch fork BBQ. Local service groups managed to find time and energy to prepare seven meals for all our guests over the weekend. Bear festival events included teddy bear workshops, charity bear auction, a display of spectacular artist bears and another of antique bears, authors’ book autographing party, bear appraisals and, of course....the salesroom. The only complaints were that there were too many good choices and not enough time! Over $ 50,000.00 was raised for charity.

Magic happened that weekend. All types of people, from all walks of life, celebrated life with the aid of our fuzzy friends. My hometown shared the best parts of small town living with our guests, and the bear community educated Clarionittes to the fact that there are more rewards to teddy bear collecting than just a house full of bears. I had accomplished my goals. All the hard work had been worth it, and....I knew in my heart that nothing like this would ever take place again!

The success of "Clarion", as the festival has come to be known in the teddy bear community, traveled far and wide. Myth-like tales emerged as conventioneers returned home and spread the word. The phone in the office of the Clarion Chamber of Commerce rang off the wall. People wanted to go back! Others wanted to be assured they would be included in Clarion’s next event.

The event put tiny Clarion on the national map. The local businesses had fared well and naturally wanted the event to happen again. The bear community kept asking the community for another date. It seems the only person not wanting the event to happen again was me...Steve.

I know that most people thought I was dragging my feet on another event because I didn’t want to work that hard again. Some members of the chamber even approached me off the record to see if I would accept payment to do another festival. It is true that I literally gave up a year of my life to do the first event. But...what I was most concerned about was meeting people’s expectations if we did a second event. I wasn’t sure the magic would happen again! Nor was I sure there were enough new ideas in the community to keep the event fresh for those who returned, and.... I wasn’t sure we could meet the expectations of persons attending for the first time after all the stories they had heard!

I did agreeto do the event again with a few stipulations. Local people would need to do more of the work of the registration, housing and feeding the guests. They also needed to take over the responsibility of deciding who got sales tables in the showroom to remove me from a possible political nightmare. In the end I agreed to do the workshop schedule, the convention schedule and serve as a convention figurehead for the teddy bear community. The town was to do the rest!

"FLIP JACKS" Anyone - get ready to catch your breakfast.

The second event was held in June of 1995. Steve’s insistence that there be new experiences offered, and the committee’s determination to keep a good recipe working, merged into an event which was different from the 1990 homecoming, but instantly achieved the same magic and excitement. There were new things for past participants to experience, and the best parts of the first event

were present for newcomers. The Boyds Company produced a special edition resin figurine for the event, which has become very valuable on the secondary market. The event also became International as more than eight foreign countries were represented in the registrations. Charity monies soared and benefited the Clarion Culture Center, the future home of Clarion’s International Artist Teddy Bear Archives and Museum.

The Teddy Bear Reunion In The Heartland is scheduled again for June in year 2000 and the committees are hard at work planning the event. Registration for the event is limited to 1000 participants and as of February 1, 1998 more than 400 registration spots are reserved. The salesroom is sold out and the waiting lists for artists and vendors are full. Steve promises some new activities and experiences and the committee assures you that favorite past events will again be included.

For a Teddy Bear Collector’s Registration Form and more information, please write to:

Teddy Bear Reunion In The Heartland
P. O. Box 6
Clarion, Iowa 50525, USA

We at Intercal hope that you have enjoyed reading about this show as much as we have enjoyed writing about, and participating in, the "Clarion Reunion". If you decide to contact the folks in Clarion, please mention that you read about the event in these web pages and that "Intercal sent you"! Thank you.