Chances are good that anyone attending tonight’s Auburn-Mississippi State football game in Starkville, Miss., will hear Eric Vlietstra before they see him.
“I’ll probably set up a spot near the Junction, put some cowbells on a little table,” the Red Bank resident said Wednesday, which happened to be his 40th birthday. “Maybe I’ll sell enough to pay for the trip.”
Until six weeks ago, Vlietstra was selling enough cowbells on the side to significantly build a college fund for his 11-year-old son, Conner. And Mississippi State’s storied bells weren’t even most of his business.
“We’ve probably sold more to high schools than anybody else,” he said. “They use them for fundraisers. We sold 150 once to a school in Texas, which is still the state we’ve done the most business.”
After selling 821 bells with little marketing a year ago, the former industrial engineer at Suburban decided if he could up that total to 3,000 a year he could quit his day job, which is exactly what he did on July 30.