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]
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Im ready to order the 49 flavor assorted bag plus a small jalepeno since they got left out of the batch this go around! L0L!
Gosh...I dont know.
who could resist jelly bellys? LOL
Grady?
He might not have lived so long if he had continued smoking. If he stopped smoking in 1967, he lived the last 37 years without smoking. My father quit smoking almost 20 years ago, and I really doubt he would be in good health at the age of 71 if he were still smoking.
Great, now I'm hungry for jelly bellies.
ping to #25
Yeah, a 2 lb sack could last me quit a while ;^p
Geez....I was smiling through this thread until this picture. tissue break
What a great idea! I must say I like Jelly Belly's too much and my Jelly Belly belly shows it.
Sam's Club switched to their own Member's Mark brand of Jelly Belly's. Barf. I don't buy anything but the original.
sw
No kidding. Jelly beans are sugar with a skin. Jelly Bellies are WONDERFUL. I am having a much harder time finding them since I moved to GA from CA.
Just a thought for the FR future... lest we forget. (Echoing Kipling's "Recessional.") But is that enough...?
Scots and their descendants around the world celebrate Robert Burns' birthday every January 25th in "Burns' Night Dinners," with certain traditions observed.
Perhaps we conservatives need an annual celebration of one of our greatest too: "Reagan Night Dinners" on February 6th. (We at least can skip the haggis.) At the very least there is plenty of superb material for recitation in his speeches. And what more splendid way to pass on his (and our) vision to future generations, lest they forget?
Scott O'Grady.
Whoops. Sorry. Missed the answer post until too late.
ROTFL!
I never cared for jelly beans until I tried Jelly Belly ones. Pear is my favourite flavour.
Regards, Ivan
I like to give jellybellys (and sometimes those gumball dispensers made especially for them), but I rarely buy them for myself. Tomorrow I'm going to the local gift shop that has bins of jellybellys to choose from and buy and eat some in his honor.
My wife takes the kids (and their friends) to the Fairfield factory once every couple of years. They come home with tons of the "misfits" at bargain prices. Root beer is my favorite.
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