Trending
Chuck Hubbell, an ambassador for the Laurel Highlands Visitor Center in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, hopes someone from North Dakota will stop by the visitor center.
Hubbell, in a phone call this past Friday to The Minot Daily News, said the Great Allegheny Passage trail, a biking and hiking trail, gets around 1½ million visitors each year but no one from North Dakota has ever signed the guest book at the visitor center.
He said people from "every state except North Dakota" have signed the guest book. Visitors from a number of other countries also have visited there.
Connellsville is about 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Laurel Highlands Visitor Center is an arm of the Laurel Highland Visitor Bureau in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
Hubbell recently asked for the help of the local newspaper in Connellsville to get the word out in looking for a North Dakotan or North Dakotans to come to the visitor center. That newspaper published a story this past Thursday calling on North Dakota visitors.
Hubbell also sought the help of some local teens, who did a chalk drawing to advertise that the visitor center has never had a N.D. visitor. He said he thought of the chalk art advertisement as reminiscent of the old Burma Shave ads placed along roads.
With the recent effort, Hubbell is hoping word will get to someone from North Dakota to stop by the visitor center. If they do and have identification they are from North Dakota, plans are to present them with a gift bag with special items.
Anyone from North Dakota who has sights set on becoming the first visitor to the Laurel Highlands Visitor Center in Connellsville can find out more by calling the Laurel Highlands Visitor Bureau in Ligonier at 724-238-5661, ext. 108.
Hubbell said all of this is a "fun thing" as they wait for their first visitor from North Dakota.