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Mr. Lava
Lava November 22, 2004 Meet Brent Blake, the brains behind the giant lamp By Brandon Swanson Columbia Basin Herald staff writer To most folks, the name Brent Blake brings to mind a 65-foot cylinder of gelatinous goo. True, he is spearheading the campaign to bring a giant lava lamp to Soap Lake, but don't call him a one-trick pony. Blake has as a title for every one of his interests which, one learns early on, are numerous.
Thursday, April 3, 2003; Page H03 Let Paris have its Eiffel Tower. Soap Lake, Wash., is hoping for a bubbling 60-foot lava lamp. Brent Blake, a local design consultant, was looking for a way to bring tourist dollars to sleepy Soap Lake, population 1,760. Once a bustling spa town with mineral baths, the little burg 180 miles east of Seattle is too... Columbia Basin Herald January 20, 2003 They're testing the proverb: "Many hands make
light work." THE AGE, Melbourne Australia January 14, 2003 Soap Lake's heyday as a spa town is long past and, here, along what has become a faded byway in eastern Washington state's Grand Coulee country, the present is very bleak. "The city's broke, practically," said Soap Lake Mayor Ken Lee. "We have no industry, no tax base. We need to do something." Something, yes, but a lava lamp? Miami Herald
Miami, Florida Worried that visitors don't stop at Soap Lake any more even though its medicinal waters reputedly can cure anything from sheep parasites to snake bite, civic leaders are seriously considering trying to revive the tourist trade with a psychedelic blast from the past: a towering 60-foot-high lava lamp in the center of downtown, complete with viewing platform. CNN.com Tuesday, January 14, 2003 Worried that visitors don't stop at Soap Lake any more even though its medicinal waters reputedly can cure anything from sheep parasites to snake bite, civic leaders are seriously considering trying to revive the tourist trade with a psychedelic blast from the past: a towering 60-foot-high lava lamp in the center of downtown, complete with viewing platform. LATIMES.com THE
BBC NEWS The little town of Soap Lake, in central Washington State, is well on its way to becoming a ghost town. Even on a weekday, the main street is almost deserted. It is easy to imagine that classic tumbleweed somersaulting across the road. It certainly would not need to look both ways. THE
SEATTLE TIMES Halfway down the road to becoming a ghost town, Soap Lake is one of many communities trying to wring money out of a dried-up town. Folks out here are looking for something — anything — to bring on a little revitalization. Like maybe a proposed $3 million,
60-foot lava lamp.
Columbia
Basin Herald While Moses Lake has been attracting its fair share of attention about becoming the future home of the Seattle Space Needle, nearby Soap Lake is making headlines as the destination for a proposed 68-foot lava lamp placed in the center of downtown. The
Wenatchee World
SOAP LAKE - Hey gang! No, wait. Let's build a giant, 60-foot Lava Lamp instead. Various articles published around the country by the associated press. Grant
County Journal
SOAP LAKE And now, the newest addition to that old category, So
cool it just might work the Giant Lava Lamp of Soap Lake. The
Spokesman-Review Forgive me for believing that those Big Scale days of the Inland Northwest were long gone. But I thought we'd never again see the kind of bold and brawny construction projects that gave us such gargantuan wonders as Grand Coulee Dam, Hanford or the Silver Valley Hazardous Waste Superfund Clean-Up Site. Then along came Brent Blake with a King Kong-sized dream. Boston Globe SOAP LAKE, Wash. - This economically depressed city on the arid plains of eastern Washington has been searching for something to bring back its glory days, when tourists were drawn by the lake's purported healing qualities. Now Soap Lake's leaders are hoping a vision that
came to a local design consultant as he returned from an economic
development conference can revitalize this community that considers
itself a haven for artists. They're thinking big. They're thinking
1970s.
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