A Rose Bouquet “How Sweet It Is” – Like Winning at PCH
I realized many of our PCH Blog readers might like to hear how our rose bouquet tradition got started when I saw some of your comments in response to Amanda’s February 17th PCH Blog post. (Yes, I do read them!)
When we first started delivering Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes prizes directly to winners’ doors in 1988, we routinely brought along flowers and balloons to add colorful accents to the videotaped winning moments. Minutes before the actual presentations we’d stop at a local florist and pick up whatever flowers were on hand, generally a mixed bouquet of carnations, daisies, or wild flowers. “Wrap ‘em up!” we’d say, then speed away in the Prize Patrol van to make a surprise award. Of course our PCH winner was flabbergasted by our visit, especially The Big Check. The flowers were gratefully received with a courteous “Aren’t they nice?”
One day a local florist didn’t have any ordinary flowers to give us. “All we have today is red long-stemmed American Beauty roses,” she said. “But I’ll give you a special price on a rose bouquet since I won’t have anything else ‘til later today.”
“You’ve got a deal,” we said. Gina, one of our Prize Patrol’ers, took the bouquet and marched from the store looking as happy as Miss America. And off we drove to surprise a lucky PCH winner nearby.
Winner Linda Franklin was thrilled with her big cash prize; but it was the bouquet of roses that produced tears and sound-bites that made her winning moment a real stand-out.
“Oh aren’t they beautiful!!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never gotten a rose bouquet in my entire life! Oh, I’m going to cry,” which she promptly did.
The next day, another bouquet of roses elicited more tears from a middle-aged woman winner. “I haven’t gotten roses since I was 16!”
Often the roses steal the show. Click on this link to the Prize Patrol’s journey to Veronica Trombino’s winning moment (last March) and you’ll hear the lucky winner say “The roses would have been enough!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM072lHgtHM
Some of you have commented that – as nice as the red roses are – you’d rather have star lilies or sunflowers or pink roses. The fact is — whatever flowers we bring, they will eventually fade away. But the thrill of winning AND the prize money represented by The Big Check will last a lot longer – perhaps a lifetime.
So enter the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes today — and every day — by going to pch.com. You could be the next winner (like Beth Hillis shown above) to open the door — and “smell the roses.”
Good luck!
Dave Sayer
PCH Prize Patrol Ambassador
