Imagine going to a Taylor Swift concert and being given a real puppy as a door prize. Something similar happened in Chattanooga in the spring of 1953.
If you were a child of a certain age, the biggest star in America in the early 1950s was Roy Rogers, the movie and television actor dubbed “the King of the Cowboys.” He and his wife, Dale Evans; horse, Trigger; and dog, Bullet; were major mid-20th century celebrities.
(READ MORE: Memorial Auditorium turns 100 this year)
The children in the photo accompanying this article were excited to be able to talk to Rogers on the telephone. As the winners of a “Cutest Little Cowgirl and Cowboy Contest” sponsored by a local department store, they won the chance to speak to Rogers while he and his entourage were here for two performances at the Memorial Auditorium.
On the same newspaper page where this photo appeared was another picture of three women sitting beside a table piled with letters. Each envelope contained an entry in an essay contest. The winner, the photo caption explained, would get a puppy sired by Rogers’ German shepherd, Bullet. According to news reports, the eventual winner was 12-year-old Buddy Hickey, of 28th Street, who had an improbable story to tell the following Monday at school.