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New hall of fame area?


KIfan73
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When Kings Island posts nothing but ads for discount days on their blog, it's easy to miss the rare moments of valuable information that crops up on it:

The Kings Island Hall of Fame is located on International Street by the Kings Island Theater, directly across from Keyhole Photo. Check it out during your visit to the park this weekend.

http://www.visitkingsisland.com/public/fun/blog/2011/10/6/Ingram%2C_Voss_to_be_inducted_into_Kings_Island_Hall_of_Fame.cfm

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If you are familiar with where the old outdoor section of lockers used to be inbetween the front gate and the Kings Island Theatre, that is where it is located. Imagine as if you were walking out the old Season Pass entrance, there is a big wall and it now features plaques with the inductees names.

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Snoopy's not an employee, but a licensed character.

Mefford's a character, too, but this is supposed to be about the wonderful Ruth Voss. I am sure Bill would agree, being the classy guy he is. Some day his turn will come, but for now he's still in training.

Terp, who sometimes just can't help himself, and who notes many fanboys would have inducted Jeff Seibert first.

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  • 1 year later...

So I actually took the time to look at the HOF location at KI a few weeks back. My wife had to use the restroom when we got to the park, so I took my son over to get measured, then while killing a few minutes, took the two kids over there so I could see what was in the hall of fame area.

1) I know the KI HOF won't be appreciated by many guests, probably less than 1%, but if they're going to do it, why have it tucked away in a part of the park where it goes almost completely unnoticed.

2) Can somebody give me some more detail on Bill Mefford? I know he's tied in or perhaps owns Entertainment Junction, I know he used to do PR for Kings Island, helped get Universal Studios started and some other stuff I've found surfing around the net. Sounds like an interesting guy, would love to hear more, sounds like some people on here know him and could provide that, would be appreciated.

3) There is a picture of a couple of people riding The Racer in the first row of the HOF. It makes no mention of who those people are, but was wondering if that was perhaps Don in that picture, perhaps from back in the day when he used to ride it a ton. Just courious.

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2) Can somebody give me some more detail on Bill Mefford? I know he's tied in or perhaps owns Entertainment Junction, I know he used to do PR for Kings Island, helped get Universal Studios started and some other stuff I've found surfing around the net. Sounds like an interesting guy, would love to hear more, sounds like some people on here know him and could provide that, would be appreciated.

Bill Mefford is a hell of a guy and a really good friend of mine. I'm actually going to see him tomorrow.

He worked in PR at Kings Island in the 1980s and was asked to help spearhead the Wonderland Sydney project in Sydney, Australia. With accepting that position, he was promoted to VP of Communications with Taft Broadcasting. When his kids started to grow up, he came back to the United States. When he came back in the late 80s, he was asked to help with an ambitious project in Central Florida that ended up being Universal Studios Florida. He was VP of communications for Universal Studios until the park opened in 1990. His main function was to help get the park open, so when it did, he was offered a comfortable position in the park but opted to return to Cincinnati to be with his family.

As soon as word got out that he was available, his phone rang off the hook with people who wanted him to come work with them on projects all around the world. Thus, MPR Marketing - his own marketing/PR consultation company was formed.

In the 90's, Meff continued to leave his finger prints all over the industry. While working with the Americana Amusement Park, he met a young and ambitious gentlemen by the name of Jeffrey Siebert. Mefford and Siebert began to form a partnership, friendship and "mentor-ship." Together, they began to change the face of the industry. One thing that comes to mind that we've seen recently were $1 days. They thought that if they made $1 parking, $1 admission and various $1 products around the park, that spending would go up on those select days... and boy were they right.

Mefford went on to have a more committed role within Kings Island, about 3 days a week (which is a lot for a consultant) and Jeffrey Siebert went on for a brief stint with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks hockey team.

The duo was reunited when SIebert took a position as "Marketing Communications Area Manager" which was the mouthful way of saying "PR guy" during the Paramount Era. To make a long story short, he left Kings Island in 2005 to take a corporate communications job at Schlitterbahn and recently took the job of Marketing Director at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

Mefford left Kings Island in the early Cedar Fair years, which opened to the door to work on other projects.

Not long after Cedar Fair acquired Kings Island a round of layoffs resulted in its Entertainment Manager, Bill Balfour, parting ways with the company and being picked up as the General Manager of the world's largest indoor train display -- EnterTrainMent Junction. Balfour - still being connected with some of the best in the industry - asked Mefford to do the satellite feeds for their grand opening. He agreed, and still works for EnterTrainMent Junction today. In a similar fashion, he was "drafted" to do similar work for Wake Nation in Fairfield, OH and Houston, TX.

That was just the brief history, believe it or not.

Other highlights

- Authored a mystery book

- Did the media end of the grand opening of Hard Rock Park (his part went well, I swear LOL)

- Does PR for a Herschend park, but I can't remember which one off hand

- PR for Coney Island

If you have any questions you want to ask him or whatever, let me know. I talk to him all the time.

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