Luck Yo-Yo Capital: New Video on the Life of a Yo-Yo Demonstrator

By John Dorschner
    Kids were wowed by dad's Thunderbird with Duncan Yo-Yo on the side. He did tricks for them in school yards, visited TV shows, five-and-dimes and newspaper offices. More than once, reporters called him "yo-yo champ of the U.S."
    The champ was Herm Ridgeway, who toured the areas of Texas, Arizona, Utah and Colorado for Duncan Yo-Yo. His formal title was "campaign manger," according to his son Paul, but most Duncan folks called them "yo-yo demonstrators."
   While the tales of two demonstrators who retired to Polk County -- Ted Anderson and Jerry Videen -- are fairly well known, not much has reported about Herm Ridgeway until his son Paul returned to Luck last summer from his California home for a high school reunion and talked about going on the road with his mom and dad, who included Paul occasionally doing his own trick demonstrations.
    A video of Paul's recounting of the family's yo-yo adventures is available HERE on YouTube.
         Duncan provided a good living for the Ridgeways for quite a few years, including summers at a lodge near Bone Lake that the company made available to the traveling demonstrators.
Paul himself received a measure of fame at the age of 10 when the Milwaukee Journal wanted a kid to pose with a mound of yo-yos for a Sunday magazine cover story on the Luck yo-yo plant. The Journal called him a "yo-yo champion," though Paul remembers simply that his mom heard the newspaper wanted a kid to pose with the yo-yos and she volunteered him.

         Careful readers might note that the caption describes the child as Lynn Ridgeway. Paul says that was the name he was given at birth, but he never liked it and as an adult had his name legally changed to Paul Ridgeway, using his middle name. (Another Lynn who apparently didn't like his name was Hall of Fame pitcher Lynn Nolan Ryan, who is also best known by his middle name.)
      The end for yo-yo demonstrators came abruptly. Paul recalls that Herm was in Texas selling yo-yos when he received a call from Duncan that the company was bankrupt and was closing. Herm had to sell his golf clubs to buy gas to get to Phoenix, where he had relatives.