History
Originally created by Steve Chmelar in 1971, who constructed a giant hand out of hardware cloth and paper mache for the 1971 Iowa High School Athletic Association Boy's State Basketball Finals. Ottumwa Bulldogs vs Davenport West Falcons. A senior in high school, Steve's photo was taken by the Associated Press and published in the Des Moines Tribune and the 1971 Ottumwa High School Class Yearbook, the "Argus" in Ottumwa, Iowa.
In 1978, Geral Fauss created foam fingers to show support for the team at the high school where he taught, to raise funds for the industrial arts club, and as a project that his industrial arts class could produce themselves. The first prototype foam finger was actually made out of plywood and had a painting of a "number one" done in the school's colors.
The success of the hand at his high school led Geral Fauss to venture into the sports merchandise business, by making hands to sell at the 1978 Cotton Bowl game (University of Texas Vs Notre Dame), and later by founding Spirit Industries for the large scale manufacturing of foam fingers. In 1979, the first polyurethane foam version of the product was produced by Spirit Industries.
Read more about this topic: Foam Hand
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)