Second Annual Monolithic Dome Tour Review

October 31, 2002

by Freda Parker

Many Thanks To Our Dome Owners

The officers and employees of the Monolithic Dome Institute, together with the officers and members of the Monolithic Dome Builders Association, extend a heartfelt Thank You to our many dome owners who so willingly participated in the dome tour.

Without your cooperation, the dome tour would not have been possible. We appreciate your time, your efforts, and especially your willingness to share your Monolithic Dome experiences and knowledge.

Gratefully yours,

David B. South, President, MDI

Bob Schick, President, MDBA

Thousands Visit Residential and Commercial Domes

About 4000 people toured 32 residential and 6 commercial Monolithic Domes, scattered across 18 states, during the Second Annual Monolithic Dome Tour, cosponsored by the Monolithic Dome Institute (MDI) and the Monolithic Dome Builders Association (MDBA), on October 18 and 19, 2002.

The visitors toured, inspected, watched video presentations, helped themselves to scads of free literature and asked a jillion questions about Monolithic Domes.

Coordination and Media Involvement Got Results

Months before the actual tour weekend rolled around, MDI and MDBA began their coordinating efforts. Tour Coordinator Anne DeMoss and her crew contacted dome owners and designed an easy-to-complete questionnaire for those who wished to participate. When a list of participating dome owners was completed, MDI's publicist, Carol Lanham began her media campaign. Carol sent press releases to large and small newspapers located in and near areas where domes available for touring were located. She also provided radio and television stations with similar information. "On average," Carol says, "at least five media outlets for each dome were contacted." That resulted in several radio interviews of dome owners and coverage of the tour by at least three TV stations.

What Dome Owners Experienced

"The dome-owner responses are interesting," Anne says. "Because of our coordinating efforts, there are a lot of similarities, but there are also some unique differences."

Here is a summary of those responses:

Arizona

Bracken Cherry in Sedona opened his seven-dome Xanadu for tours on three consecutive days: Oct. 18, 19, 20. After reading articles in Sedona, Prescott and Flagstaff papers, more than 1200 people donated the requested $1.00 per person to tour this dome complex. Bracken says, "The visitors were constant and steady."
Mason Rumney in Sedona hosted tours of his dome home on three successive Saturdays: Oct. 5, 12, 19 and spoke with 150 visitors about Monolithic Domes and solar energy. When not occupied at his dome, Mason helped Bracken with tours of Xanadu.
MDBA Secretary Mark Henrikson of Yuma contributed donations he received for the dome tour to a local food bank whose food supply was recently destroyed by a fire. Mark said they had a "pleasant crowd of about 150." He also did a 10-minute radio interview that was repeated several times and had TV and newspaper coverage.
Rick and Melody Crandall in Mesa spoke with more than 225 visitors to their Le Chateau de Lumiere. Rick says, "All the
literature was gone in no time." Local newspapers did feature articles about their dome.

Colorado

Charles Brath in Colorado Springs had newspaper coverage with pictures that resulted in 40 visitors to his dome home.
Andy and Regina Hutchinson of Colorado Springs operate a media duplication business in their saucer-shaped, commercial
Monolithic Dome. They had front page coverage in the metro section of their paper to which 15 groups responded. They said they had mixed groups of "a lot of people," who enjoyed playing videos with dome information.
Patricia Sommer of Englewood said, "Our tour on Saturday was a great success. I had no idea how many people were dome advocates. We had nonstop traffic from 10:15 to 4:30. We had 20 to 25 different sets of visitors. It was fun to share information about our home with these enthusiasts."

Georgia

Larry Leitgeb of Martin described his experience as "a very positive day." He wrote, "For the one-blinking-light town of Martin, I thought I had enough interest." Seven families, in various stages of interest, visited, some from as far away as Gainesville and Atlanta. Larry recently adopted an abandoned dog whose fur matches the color of his dome, so he named the dog Sandstone.

Idaho

Randy and Karen South of Menan reported "a beautiful day for their tour." Thanks to the fair weather, a front page article in the Post Register and the public's interest in domes, they had 500 visitors. Randy, vice president of Dome Technology, Inc., said that they had a steady stream all day.
Michael and Roberta Rice of Sandpoint had eight groups tour their dome, Rushy Glen, which is in the final stage of construction.

Kansas

Eula and Darrell Henderson of Arlington had 40 people, many of whom traveled significant distances, visit their small, 452 square feet dome that Darrell built. Two local papers published information about their tour.
MDBA president Bob Schick of Wakarusa enjoyed talking with 22 tourists, all of whom knew about Monolithic Domes and the annual Monolithic Dome Conference.

Montana

Nick and Kaite Howes of Nye spoke with 60 individuals curious about domes. Ghostwood, the Howes' home consisting of seven interconnected domes, was featured on two local TV news broadcasts and in a Billings Gazette article.

Nevada

Joseph and Mildred Townsend of Reno said they had 24 people who traveled from Oregon, Washington, California and various Nevada towns, and were "really interested in domes." The Townsends had no media coverage. Their visitors learned about the tour on the Internet. They asked a lot of good questions and expressed surprise at the inside roominess of the dome.

North Carolina

Jim Kaslik, owner of Cloud Hidden Designs, didn't keep count on tour day, but said that he averages about 2 tours per week throughout the year. He added, "What I especially like is that all of them are educated when they get here. Because they only find me through your (web) site, they've had a chance to study." According to Jim, visitors on tour day were "all serious. No looky-loos and one drove 11 hours from Indiana."

Ohio

Ray Sheets in Helena had cold, windy weather on tour day, but still hosted 52 visitors at his dome.

Oklahoma

Ron Richardson of Yukon reported that cold, nasty weather didn't detour his visitors. After reading about the tour in The Daily Oklahoman and The Yukon Review, more than 200 people showed up.
Texhoma School Superintendent Rick Kibbe said they had 22 tour their two-dome facility.

Texas

Jack De Vault of Hondo said that some of their 60 visitors were parked at their gate by 9:30, waiting for the tour to begin.
Because of the continuous flow, Jack sent five groups to Ken and Nola Hansens' nearby dome. Jack's media coverage included a radio interview and newspaper articles.
Bob and Betty Spencer of Houston had 14 happy people visit, all of whom knew much about domes.
MDI headquarters in Italy had more than 200 visitors. Melinda South, who welcomed them and had visitors sign a guest book, said they came from 25 different Texas communities as well as Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Oklahoma. According to Kathleen Mims, tour conductor at the Orion, "People fell in love with the Orion's straight walls. Many watched Gary Clark's film on the Orion's construction and were disappointed that it was not longer than 15 minutes." Kris Garrison, who interacted with people at the Visitors Center, said, "They had lots of questions about construction."

Virginia

Erling and Barbara Rosholdt of Lousia had 250 visitors. After seven newspapers ran press releases about the tour, the Rosholdts received 70 phone calls in two days asking for directions. Worried about a traffic jam, they asked the local sheriff for help. Their tour included showing videos and digital pictures and distributing literature that they quickly ran out of.

Wisconsin

Ed and Dawne Bisek of Eleva showed their still incomplete dome to 100 interested visitors. A local TV station as well as three newspapers covered the tour in their area.

Power of the Media -- Good and Bad

Carol Lanham tells us that some unexpected things happened during the dome-tour media campaign. For example, the Rosholdts' surprisingly large turn out happened because the article published in the Charlottesville paper got picked up by the Associated Press Wire Service. "Before we knew it, it was being published all over Virginia," Carol said.

Another unexpected happened to Jack De Vault. A paper in his area mistakenly gave October 12th instead of the 19th as the tour date. On the morning of October 12, an unsuspecting Jack was in the shower when people began knocking on his front door.

"But overall we received a very good response from the media," Carol said. "Newspapers that had covered the tour last year were willing to write about it again because it was so successful and because there is such a high interest in domes," she concluded.