Madison Daily Leader - Sioux Falls firm lands Nebraska banner deal

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Madison Daily Leader	home : news : news : business

Sioux Falls firm lands Nebraska banner deal

By The Associated Press

08/26/2009

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SIOUX FALLS (AP) -- Workers at a Sioux Falls firm are racing the clock to finish a 60-foot by 80-foot flag for University of Nebraska football games.

Maximum Promotions has been stitching banners for schools, sports teams and patriotic groups since 1982, but this is the largest banner the business has done.

Kevin Fonder, national sales manager, said the 4,800-square-foot flag says "Go Big Red -- N." The "N" itself is almost 28 feet tall, or nearly three times the height of a basketball hoop.

"We'll have it done," Fonder said Tuesday. "We're hoping to have it done this week."

Four employees are working on the $5,000 banner, which needs to be done by Nebraska's home opener on Sept. 5.

"When I see a game on TV, I'll say I was part of that," said seamstress Netta Hustrulid.

After the flag is stitched and ready, the end product will weigh 200 pounds.

The banner will have its special moment during each home game, said J.S. Engebretson, communications and marketing manager for the college of engineering at Nebraska.

"When the band goes onto the field, we take over that section with students," she said. "They unroll the flag. It waves in the wind while the band plays the national anthem. Then the band members take their seats and away we go until the next game."

The idea formed when dean David Allen toured Brazil with Nebraska engineering students. They saw a soccer game in a stadium with similar banners and wanted the same for football in Lincoln.

The school gave the project to a Brazilian manufacturer whose bid came in at less than half of the one submitted by Maximum Promotions. But strips of paint came loose from the Brazilian banner, and the fabric ripped in the wind.

So officials looked to Sioux Falls for a replacement. Fonder said the new flag should outperform the one it's replacing.

"It will last as long as they take care of it," he said.

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