FEATURE

John Henshell internal communications sample: feature article, employee engagement, employee recognition, human interest

BOB DYKEMAN IMMORTALIZED IN DRUMMOND, MONTANA

Bob Dykeman (SA 76, Missoula, Montana) will be filling the newly created DM position in Bend, Oregon, but it will be tough for him to leave his customers in Montana. Bob is one of the best-known and most popular people in Drummond, a town of 800 to 900 people near I 90, between Missoula and Anaconda. Every business in Drummond buys Boyds coffee.

To promote the “Mule Days” rodeo held last weekend, the Sky Motel had a mural painted in their front window. The owner of the motel contacted Bob’s wife to borrow a photograph, and a painter, working from the photograph, painted a cartoon of Bob as a bucking cowboy. Cowboy Bob is wearing a shirt with the old Boyds logo on it, and although it’s too small to read in the picture, the lettering on the hatband reads “BOB.” All of Bob’s customers knew that the Bob in the painting was Bob Dykeman, and he got comments on it throughout Drummond. In fact, the painting was so well received by the community, that Bob will be featured in the next mural the Sky Motel does.

Being honored by the painting makes it a little harder for Bob to leave the people he’s served for the past five years. The customers saying their difficult goodbyes aren’t telling him, “You’ve got 24 hours to leave town, pardner.” Bob will be missed in Drummond, but we know he’ll build the same kind of relationships in Bend.