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TAGSRWC...THEN AND NOW This is the first newsletter of "The Andy Griffith Show" Rerun Watchers Club (TAGSRWC). Our organization is dedicated to watching and promoting "The Andy Griffith Show." TAGSRWC began in the fall of 1979 as a small and informal group of people who shared a love for watching "The Andy Griffith Show." Founding members Lyell (name removed by request), Dan Auter, Brook Alexander, and I would watch TAGS daily at the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity house on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville, TN. Within a couple of years, the club, though still informal, had grown considerably, and a large crowd would gather to watch the show. Meanwhile, various people in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina continued to express their interest in the show. Like the club in Nashville, the group in Greensboro would have its casual gatherings simply because its members enjoyed watching the show. (For that reason, we call ourselves a "watchers" club instead of a traditional "fan" club.) Though the club was growing steadily, it still remained relatively small and informal until earlier this year. Then, on January 24, 1982, an article on TAGSRWC was written by Ken Beck, an editor and writer for the Sunday Showcase" Section of the Nashville Tennessean. Our club has not been the same since. Ken is himself an avid fan of TAGS, and his article garnered enthusiastic responses from TAGS watchers all over Tennessee and from a wide area of the country. The response was, in fact, so great that, at Ken's suggestion, we decided to begin putting out this; newsletter. (For anybody who might be uninitiated in TAGS lore, our newsletter derives its name from the bullet Barney carries in his shirt pocket.) We plan to put out The Bullet two or maybe three times every year. This initial issue is serving largely as a formal introduction to our club. In future issues of The Bullet, we will offer a wide variety of material. We will have features on what has happened to the actors and other principles in TAGS since the show went out of production. We hope to have interviews, polls of members, quizzes, and other features to help our members enjoy watching TAGS even more. We encourage club members to send us any material or comments they might have for The Bullet. We would especially like to hear from anyone interested in establishing a TAGSRWC chapter. Those who are interested in starting a chapter need only write to our TAGSRWC address in Nashville and tell us who will be the charter members, where the chapter will be, and what name they would like their chapter to have. As of now, the only names which have been taken are "Andy" chapter for Nashville and "Barney" chapter for Greensboro. Other chapter names will be reserved on a first-come basis. |
