This year we are honoring Jack Russell, a major player in the history of American Yo-Yoing with the "Harvy Lowe Lifetime Achievement Award". We will have a full bio of Jack up shortly, but here are a few of the major points:

Jack was born in 1920 and started playing with yo-yos in during high school where his talent was clear. He was picked up as a Duncan Demonstrator in 1938, and thanks to his great business and marketing skills quickly moved up the corporate ranks to management. His emphasis was on developing the promotion end of the business. In the late 1940's Duncan spun off their advertising promotional department into it's own business called Duncan Russell and Ives (DRI). Eventually Jack Russell bought out all international division rights himself, and formed his own company that is still in operation.

His first molds were modeled off the old Roy-Rogers model of yo-yo, and were used (and are still used today) wold wide as promotional yo-yos. They are best known for their production of Coca-Cola yo-yos.

Jacks first promotion for Coca-Cola was in Atlanta in 1947, 50 years to the day later he retired in 1997 on his 77th birthday.

We are having a special limited edition model of Jack Russell yo-yos produced for this event. They will be their most popular shape but made as a take-apart with the event logo on it. Please look for these at the event this year.