Posted on 07/16/2003 7:49:47 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Saving the kicks on Route 66 Enthusiast heads up Hampton Inns' preservation caravan
By David Flaum flaum@gomemphis.com July 16, 2003
If Jim Conkle was road-weary after 9,000 or so miles on the road since late April, he didn't show it Tuesday.
Talking about U.S. 66, his route for much of his travels, gets his adrenaline pumping.
"We wanted to make Americans realize that within hours of where they live was a historical icon," said Conkle, the 62-year-old leader of the Route 66 Caravan that is being financed by Hampton Inns as part of its four-year-old Save-a-Landmark program.
Conkle drove in Tuesday morning in an RV festooned with a map of the highway known as Mother Road. The April 29-July 4 trip from Santa Monica, Calif., to Chicago and back was his 23rd round trip on the highway.
His first journey over Route 66 came in 1949 when his father, a career man in the Air Force, was transferred from Virginia to California. His parents - his mother was pregnant at the time - his brother and sister and Conkle piled into the family car for the cross-country sojourn.
On his latest jaunt, Conkle and Guy Randall, photographer and Webmaster for the trip, drove about 3,500 miles on their eastern trek and 3,200 miles back (not to mention the trip back to Memphis). The road is 2,448 miles long, but only about 80 percent is driveable, Conkle said.
He became the leader of the caravan - sometimes stretching to 45 vehicles - after Hampton Inns, based in Memphis, called him for information about Route 66 as part of the company's program to raise awareness of the roadway and protect some of its sights.
"We have more than 100 hotels along Route 66," said Melissa O'Brien, director of brand communications. "We were looking for someone who was an expert."
Conkle had been active in preservation efforts in California, so a "partnership" developed, he said.
He and the company identified 60 sites along the route for preservation work to be done, mostly by volunteers from nearby Hampton hotels with supervision from restoration professionals, O'Brien said.
Conkle said the most satisfying project for him was helping with the restoration of the base of an adobe house in Santa Fe, N.M., believed to have been built in about 1200.
The trip cost Hampton about $500,000, and the division of Hilton Hotels Corp. has spent about $1 million on its preservation efforts, O' Brien said.
Conkle, who spent much of his business career in marketing and sales (he was also in the Marine Corps for seven years and was a Clark County, Nev., deputy sheriff for two), said, "They (Hampton) could probably get more attention for their money than this got."
But Chuck Pinkowski, president of Pinkowski & Co., a Memphis-based consultant to the hospitality industry, believes the effort has great promotional value.
"Route 66 is motherhood," he said. "It's got great history and legend. All of those hotels specifically along the route can benefit from it as well as the Hamptons that are just off the road."
At a time when a growing number of people are traveling by car, the promotion is timely and should have some lasting effect, Pinkowski said.
Neither Hampton nor Conkle is finished.
The hotel chain has been looking for more landmarks to restore, including at least one in Memphis, O'Brien said.
The company has 14 hotels in the area with 15 to 30 employees each plus the Hilton corporate operation - the headquarters is in Beverly Hills, Calif. - with about 1,000 employees here, she said.
Conkle plans to be back on the road in September with the RV, stopping at the Los Angeles County Fair for two weeks and then at the Rendezvous in San Bernardino, Calif.
After that, he's headed to the International Route 66 Mother Road Festival and Car Show in Springfield, Ill., and then on to Denver.
He also plans to go to Washington to work - with the help of Hilton lobbyists - to get the National Park Service to release additional funds from the $10 million, 10-year appropriation for refurbishing and repair on the Route 66 corridor.
"I'm a very small part of a very large puzzle," Conkle said. "I'm just paying America back for what it's given me."
- David Flaum: 529-2330
Socialism is not even a concern anymore. I liked this guy when he was doing it with private money. Everyone wants a tax dollar!
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