The Emporia Gazette

May 28, 2012

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Statewide recognition for a job well-done came to Susan Rathke unexpectedly last weekend during the Kansas Sampler Festival, held this year in Concordia.

Rathke, who is sales and service coordinator for the local Convention and Visitors Bureau, was sitting with the Flint Hills team — from Emporia, Council Grove, Chase County and the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve — when she heard “Susan Rathke, Excellent for Emporia!” announced over the loud speaker.

“I thought, ‘What?’” Rathke said. “There were like 200 people standing and looking at me. ... I was completely caught off-guard with this thing. I was in total shock.”

Rathke has worked to bring conventions, meetings and tourists to Emporia for the past 16 years. Her work has brought her and Emporia into alliances with other area and regional associations with the same goal for their own cities.

Her efforts and success resulted in her receiving the “We Kan!” award from the Kansas Sampler Foundation group.

Rathke’s years of experience have given her layers of knowledge and know-how, along with a network of people willing to help promote the Emporia area in any way they can.

She tries to coordinate groups and events to mesh with schedules and workloads. Rathke would love to have Emporia designated as the host for the Kansas Sampler Festival, for example. However, host sites each hold the conventions for two consecutive years.

“I think, ‘Oh gosh, will that be during Shrine Bowl?’” she said, mentioning other events and conventions that might cause a calendar conflict or be too time-intensive for the small staff at the CVB and its volunteers.

Many events and activities coordinated by the CVB are made possible because of cooperation from others in the community who are willing to lend a hand to make Emporia a successful host site. Rathke knows who to call when she needs help, depending upon the type of assistance required.

“I think my time that I’ve been in the business has been the key,” she said. “You stay in contact with those people. ... I work with people that are so good.”

For example, Rathke can rely on Kim Redeker of the Sweet Granada to provide little bags of the candy store’s signature chocolate-drizzled popcorn for Rathke to distribute, especially at out-of-town trade shows.

During a stopover here by a major tour group, horticulturalist Dave McCullough gave each tourist a small plant he had grown for the group; the city provided bottles of Emporia’s award-winning water, and information packets and other souvenirs were distributed among the group.

“They rolled out the red carpet for us,” Rathke said of the zoo staff.

Another Emporian took time from work to act as tour guide for the busloads of people.

“One of my very favorite people to work with is Roger Heineken,” Rathke remarked. “He is the step-on guide extraordinaire.”

And the tourists were appropriately impressed by the effort.

Organizing that tour admittedly had taken considerable work by the CBV, which initially had to send out 400 invitations to each individual in the group before Emporia would be considered as a stopover.

The effort, however, brought people to the city to spend money at restaurants, gas stations and stores. That translates into income for business owners and their employees, as well as sales tax for city coffers. If the tourists spend the night, the lodging tax they pay helps run the CVB, Rathke said.

Spending one or several nights, then, is always a goal for her promotions. That may not always happen, but Rathke looks at it optimistically, whether the tourist is part of a planned trip or simply someone who pulls off the interstate or the turnpike for a gas or a meal.

“Even if you can only get them half a day, if they enjoy it, they’ll come back again,” she said. “If they had good food, good lodging, they’ll be back.”