As part of a year-long observance of serving the traveling public for the past 50 years, Cheyenne Travel/Please Go Away Vacations hosted an afternoon “thank you” party celebrating its Golden Anniversary on Aug. 27, in the CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions conference center. Past travelers were invited, and they came to Great Bend from Nebraska, Oklahoma and throughout Kansas.
The event’s theme was Wanderings, Winnings and Watermelons. Travel was not promoted. Instead, past travelers and preferred travel partners were publicly recognized and thanked in multiple ways. Having fun was paramount as favorite crowd-involving games were resurrected from prior years, dramatic changes in the travel industry over the past half-century were briefly recounted, past travel friendships were renewed, new travel friendships were made and winners were created. The afternoon was capped off with an old-fashioned watermelon feed.
In cooperation with preferred suppliers; Collette Vacations, Globus Family of Brands, Princess Cruises and Travel Impressions; travel prizes valued in excess of $1,500 were given away. Winners included: Patsy Mauch, Great Bend, Ronnie Drees, Great Bend, Patricia Howard, Ponca City, Okla., Paul Maneth, Great Bend, Rene Johnson, Great Bend, John Eckert, Hutchinson, and Jean Cross, Chanute. Fifteen Magic Coins that magically increased in value 100 times were also presented as prizes.
Additionally, everyone in attendance won a travel friendship prize packet containing multiple prizes, including a Please Go Away Vacations “50 Recipes from Around the World” cookbook and a voucher for a free copy of the book written and published by Marilyn Kopke, Paula Axman and Larry Kopke acknowledging 50 years in the travel industry and poking fun at themselves for multiple travel mistakes made over the past 50 years.
The book, “How to Travel the World, Instead of Having to Say, ‘I Wish I Would Have’” is regularly available for sale on Amazon.com with 100 percent of the proceeds going to charity.