Acceptance of award by Lyle Clapper at annual dinner and awards banquet.
This is a great honor from you who are creators of real wealth.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, wealth is not money. Wealth is goods and services. Money is just a convenient scorekeeping medium for exchanging those valuable goods and services.
Wealth can be created … and can be traded. Poker players trade wealth. Manufacturers create wealth. Stock exchanges trade wealth. Colleges and universities create wealth. Governments trade wealth. Homemakers create wealth.
Wealth is constantly being consumed. Without continuous new supply, a body of people is quickly bankrupted.
Crafters create wealth. They make beauty. They entertain. And recently, we’ve discovered they actually make themselves healthier. We in the craft industry supply these creators of wealth with materials and know-how.
For fifty years, Pack-O-Fun has been providing ideas used by millions of kids who’ve learned to make something from little or nothing … to create wealth. But just like the hundreds of new exhibitors that come to HIA every year to see if their dream will survive, Pack-O-Fun started simply.
I remember when Mom and Dad started in our basement. Our house was laughingly called a Georgian – a realtor’s euphemism for any two-story house. Twelve hundred square feet on two floors meant the basement was less than six hundred square feet … room for a gigantic furnace, a coal bin (you can look up coal bin in the dictionary), and Pack-O-Fun.
When anybody asks, I happily go into the complexities of editing, publishing and manufacturing a magazine using a manual typewriter, silk screening, and mimeograph, but I’ll spare you that tonight.
Mom, every time I look back on it, I marvel at how you and Dad did all that … while raising three kids … in that weensy house.
Dad died five years ago … but not until after you two celebrated your fifty-fifth anniversary.
Mom, I’m so glad you are able to be here to accept this prestigious award.
Thank you for starting Pack-O-Fun.
Thank you HIA for this wonderful honor.
And thank you fellow crafters for being contributors to the real wealth of our world.