Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury --
http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .
E. Coli Churches.
Sometimes a name gets ruined and you've got to get a new one. Take Hudson foods, for instance. After the E.Coli scare they recalled 25 million pounds of hamburger only to have their name ruined anyway. They lost their biggest customer, Burger King and few shoppers would purposely buy Hudson hamburgers even today. The Hudson name is ruined. James (Red) Hudson apparently knows it. Recently he sold Hudson Foods to Arkansas friend-of-Hillary Tyson Foods. Presto, Hudson hamburgers will now sell under a label more known for chicken than E. Coli. The Hudson name will join the Hudson automobile in the graveyard of useless names for now. Getting a good name is a long and hard process. Losing it happens fast.
Remember when this happened to ValuJet? After the May 1996 crash in which all 110 people aboard died, this company ditched its name by simply buying another company with a clean name. Presto, ValuJet becomes AirTran and the same equipment, pilots and maintenance staff now has a reputation that is at least neutral. (For, where names are concerned, it is better that the public know nothing of you, than know something bad.)
Have you ever seen a church ruin its name? Even God's name? I have. We are like the Hudson employee we kept seeing on TV whose job was to scrape globs of hamburger with his hands off the grinding outlet into the cart below. We work up close in the church. And, we've got to admit that sometimes th