I gave a couple of presentations during the workshops Thursday at the Route 66 Festival in Clinton. For those who missed them — or those who just want a closer look — they are online here:

Media relations (writing press releases, being interviewed, interacting with reporters)

Powerpoint version of the media relations presentation (downloadable) 

Route 66 preservation (Soundslides show on successful preservation projects) 

If other presenters’ information is online, they are welcome to send us the links, which we will add here.

Emily (the Red Fork Hippie Chick)

Although there are just 400 drive-in movie theaters left in the country after a peak of about 4,000 five decades ago, the remaining ones are mostly thriving, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Among the survivors cited in the article are the Route 66 Drive-In in Springfield, Ill.; the Skyview Drive-In in Litchfield, Ill.; and the 66 Drive-In in Carthage, Mo. Those three are on Route 66, and there are more that the Post-Dispatch didn’t mention. A more complete list can be found here.

The article also provides some handy advice for drive-in novices.

We’ve known about this for a couple of weeks, but today we nailed down the details why: The Sunrise Motel at 805 N. Service Road in Sullivan, Mo., has been razed to make way for an improved overpass over Interstate 44.

I’m not aware whether the Sunrise was ever on old Route 66 itself, but it was very close. And its sign certainly was distinctive.

The motel has changed hands, and Lisa Hellman at the City of Sullivan Economic Development office said the new owners are seeking to redevelop the site.

She also said in her e-mail:

Old 66 Highway is changing fast in this part of the county as I see it. We will just be left remembering how it was and our pictures soon.

I’m familiar with the current overpass, and traffic on it is a big mess most of the time. It’s too bad the Sunrise was regarded as in the way to improve it.

(Photo courtesy of The Lope.) 

Daily Oklahoman writer Steve Lackmeyer traveled Route 66 in Oklahoma, and he thinks, if anything, that the Mother Road isn’t getting enough attention in the state.

Go read it.

Lackmeyer also has a blog about his Route 66 trip. Here also is a slide show of Route 66 in Miami, Okla., and Afton, Okla.

The Oklahoman today has a feature about Buffalo Ranch, Laurel Kane’s Afton Station and the Route 66 Motel, all in Afton.

I’ll be at the National Route 66 Festival in Clinton, Okla., which runs from Thursday through Sunday. Photos and news from the event will be forthcoming, as long as the wireless connection and the computer equipment holds out.

According to the latest news release from the festival, many motels in western Oklahoma are sold out through that weekend. Groups of visitors from Japan, South America and Europe are coming. Michael Wallis, the “sheriff of Radiator Springs,” will be one of the presenters at the Will Rogers Awards Banquet on Friday night.

If you need more information about the event, go here.

The Pontiac (Ill.) Daily Leader reports that a statue was dedicated earlier this month commemorating the 52 people who died in an explosion in 1942 at an ordnance plant just off Route 66 in Elwood.

The statue, of a man in work clothes, wearing a hard hat and carrying a lunchbox, is next to the entrance to Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, in Elwood, about 50 miles south of Chicago, on land that was once part of what was also referred to as the Joliet Arsenal. […]

The early morning blast shattered windows miles away. The cause of the explosion remains unknown.

Developed to make ammunition for World War II, the arsenal was once the largest producer of TNT in the world. Route 66 and a railroad allowed for shipping the ammunition. The land it occupied is now a tall-grass prairie and the national cemetery. […]
The building that exploded was on a shell loading line where “the shells are packed for shipment to the fighting forces,” a newspaper account explained.

One man, who was working in a building a quarter mile away, was quoted as saying that there were two blasts. “Each knocked him down and knocked him unconscious,” the story noted. The second explosion “was so deafening, you couldn’t grasp the magnitude of it.”

The United Press reported that the explosion “was so powerful that it rocked the earth in a 50-mile radius, like a quake.”

Regrettably, little information about the disaster is found on the Web. Guy Randall’s site has a photo of another statue at the cemetery pertaining to the disaster that was dedicated in 2001. The Lope also has a recent post about the cemetery itself.

A report by the Pontiac (Ill.) Daily Leader about Monday’s city council meeting had items of interest for Route 66ers:

• A mural is planned on the east side of the Diaz Sign Art building at 628 W. Lincoln Ave. that says “Enjoy Pontiac, Illinois on Route 66″ with a 1950s-era car and a Route 66 shield. It would be visible to westbound travelers on old 66.
• Another mural is planned behind the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame Museum and Old City Hall Shoppes. The image will have the words “Pontiac, Illinois” and a Route 66 shield.
• Also planned is a turnout at the North Division Street Bridge, which is part of old Illinois Highway 4 and part of an early alignment of Route 66. The turnout is supposed to have a bench and a kiosk explaining the bridge’s history.

All three proposals require variances or other action by the city. However, the council looked at all three ideas favorably.

Just when you think there are no more new avenues to books about Route 66’s history, Peter Dedek finds unexplored backroads and obscure alignments in his “Hip to the Trip: A Cultural History of Route 66″ (169 pages, University of New Mexico Press, $19.95).

Dedek, a professor at Texas State University, diligently researches the history of the Main Street of America and explores its mythology. He deconstructs its rosy nostalgia, yet still seems to be a fan of the road.

I’ve read many books about the history of the road, but Dedek dredged up material I’d never heard before.

For instance, Route 66 tourism campaigns can trace their roots to the railroads in the 19th century that touted the American Southwest as a vacation getaway.

Promotion by railroads, dime novels with western themes, and acts such as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show provided easterners with a highly  romanticized and often fictional perspective on the formerly “wild” but recently tamed Indians living in a still “untamed” southwestern landscape.

Another thing I learned is that immediately after World War II, the pavement of Route 66 was a mess. Monies that normally went to road maintenance were concentrated on the war effort, and officials looked the other way on overweight trucks because many were hauling military equipment.

Dedek keeps finding historical nuggets like that. With more than 30 pages of footnotes and bibliography, it’s obvious he did a lot of work on this project.

He also tackles the “postmodern nostalgia” that’s part of Route 66. Many writers describe the Mother Road’s heyday of the 1950s in flowery terms as a more innocent, uncomplicated time. But that era was beset by racism, the Cold War, McCarthyism, the stirrings of the sexual revolution and a highway that was so dangerous that it was referred to as “Bloody 66.” Such debunking is needed. Yet Dedek is not mean-spirited. I get the impression he still gets a kick out of Route 66 and the nostalgia it generates.

Dedek concludes with the chapter “Saving the Mythic Ruins,” in which he examines preservation avenues for the Mother Road. It should provide food for thought for 66ers who want to keep their road around for future generations.

Although Dedek takes a largely academic approach, “Hip to the Trip” avoids the stuffy, elitist stench that permeates other books of its ilk. It’s well-written, well-reasoned, and will spark thought in the most seasoned roadie.

Highly recommended.

Rory Schepisi, who’s busy trying to get her Boot Hill Saloon & Grill open in Vega, Texas, won a contest in “The Next Food Network Star” TV series in that the dish she created appears on the July issue of Bon Appetit magazine.

The dish is called Rory’s Ribs with Grilled Corn, Cantaloupe and Fresh Herb Salad. The magazine cover image and recipe can be found here.

Video clips from the cover challenge are here.

A few days ago, we reported about the Mule Trading Post near Rolla, Mo., restoring a an animated hillbilly sign that waves its arms. Ace Jackalope took a brief video of the sign to show you what it looks like in action:

Also, Ace took a short video of the main animated neon sign at the Mule: