Throwback Thursday: The PCH Employee Newsletter And Prize Day!
It’s the day before a prize award, so for this “Prize Day Eve” edition of Throwback Thursday, we decided to dig DEEP! As some of you may remember, we recently moved our offices from our historic Port Washington, NY location to a newly remodeled headquarters in Jericho, NY. During the move, one of the archival files saved by our staff contained copies of our original Publishers Clearing House employee newsletter!
Long before our modern day “What’s Up Wednesday” internal e-newsletter, the “From Our House” printed publication informed PCH employees about the goings on around the company. It was a great way to see pictures of events and hear about good news from around the company.
Launching The Newsletter
Up above you’ll see Volume 1, Number 1! It announced the launch of the newsletter, included news on the PCH Aerobics class (so 80s!), our winning tennis team, and a recap of our “First” Annual Corn Day (more on that in a future blog)!
We have many volumes on hand, and I hope to share more of them with you in the future. One thing that may be of interest to you, especially just before Prize Day, is the newsletter’s first mention of a SuperPrize winner!
It comes in Number 5, May 1986. It highlighted our very first $2,000,000.00 winner, Patricia Keys. This was before the days of the Prize Patrol, back when the winners were contacted and brought to the Publishers Clearing House headquarters for their check presentations. Here’s what they said about Pat!
Pat Keys, A New Beginning
Pat Keys, who had never been to New York, was a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of Manhattan. However, her trip to Long Island proved quite agreeable to her. In fact, Pat even mentioned how pretty the Port Washington area was and what a nice atmosphere the Clearing House had created for its employees. Since returning to her home in Midland, PA, Pat tells us she’s become very popular. It seems that as soon as she walked in the door, the phone began to ring … and ring … and ring. One of Pat’s first purchases? You guessed it, a telephone answering machine! We haven’t said goodbye to Pat Keys, she has graciously agreed to appear in a commercial.
It’s a lot of fun to turn back time and take a look at the Prize Days of old, before Dave Sayer and Todd Sloane turned their genius Prize Patrol concept into a reality. As I said before, we have plenty of other issues to highlight, so let us know in the comments section below what parts of Publishers Clearing House history you’d like to see featured!
Matt K.
PCH Creative
P.S. Going through this archive got us wondering, how do you save your memories? In a scrapbook? Online? A shoebox of photos? Tell us in the comments below!
