FoxNews caption: A portrait of Ronald Reagan made of jelly beans is displayed at the Jelly Belly headquarters in Fairfield, Calif.
Posted on 06/08/2004 4:56:39 PM PDT by Wolfstar
FAIRFIELD, Calif. — Black ribbons are affixed to the large jelly-bean mosaic portraits of Ronald Reagan at the Jelly Belly Candy Co.
The family-owned company that makes the tiny, intense-flavored candies owes a lot to the former president.
Reagan's love for the candy "made us a worldwide company overnight," said chairman Herman Rowland.
It all began in 1967, when the San Francisco Bay-area company started supplying Reagan, then serving his first term as California's governor, with miniature jelly beans to help him quit smoking.
"It's gotten to the point where we can hardly start a meeting or make a decision without passing around the jar of jelly beans," Reagan wrote to Rowland in 1973.
Reagan carried the tradition to the White House, where the company's jelly beans became a must-have at Cabinet meetings.
The president, whose favorite flavor was licorice, ordered 7,000 pounds of Jelly Bellys for his 1981 inauguration, and Rowland traveled to Washington to help design a special jelly bean jar bearing the presidential seal.
[SNIP]
Mourners have been leaving jelly beans in Reagan's memory at his presidential library and other spots.
About 500,000 visitors a year tour the factory in Fairfield, posing for pictures in front of the Reagan portraits that have had a place of honor at Jelly Belly for years.
[SNIP - click above link for full article]
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FoxNews caption: A portrait of Ronald Reagan made of jelly beans is displayed at the Jelly Belly headquarters in Fairfield, Calif.
And he STILL lived to 93....take that anti-tobacco nazis!
There are jelly beans, and then there are Jelly Bellys. I never heard of Jelly Bellys before Ronald Reagan made them famous, and I haven't eaten a plain ol' jelly bean since.
First place I checked Saturday evening, but it was too early. Glad to see them honoring him.
The outpouring of love for this great man here in California is doing my heavy heart a world of good. Can you believe it? Half a million visitors a year to tour the Jelly Belly plant and get a picture taken with a portrait of RWR made out of jelly beans. I never heard about this until now.
LOL! You sound like a New Yawka. Although I've lived in California since the late 1970's, I'm originally from New York.
What's delightful is that people remembered that about the man, and so many brought jars of jelly beans to the funeral home and the library. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that he like jelly beans is a very small detail, but it's something people must really have enjoyed about RWR.
Just pinging for your enjoyment in a sea of sad news. Doodlelady, remember what you and I discussed about SAG late yesterday? Contrast their sterile two-paragraph statement with this news from the Jelly Belly company. They put black ribbons around the jelly bean portraits of RWR (which 500,000 people a year have been visiting). The difference between obligatory vs. genuine sentiment.
There was a great cartoon by Joe Heller in today's Wisconsin State Journal showing Reagan from behind standing in front of God...Reagan was removing the lid from a jar..."Care for a jelly bean?"
...and in spite of my excessive manliness, I teared up.
And he didn't quit until he was 56.
That sounds like a really cool cartoon.
That's the one, thanks...(and same reaction)
Had an Uncle Frank who used to have a farm somewhere outside Baltimore. That's my only tie to Maryland, except that I used to pass through on my way to DC or Florida. [Grin...]
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