In Chicago: A Sears Catalogue of Kids

By Steven Holmes

Wanna see my picture on the cover . . .

Wanna buy five copies for my mother . . .

Wanna see my smiling face

On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

--from the song The Cover of Rolling Stone

It started out as a trickle from places like Agawam, Mass., Diamond Bar, Calif., and Yardley, Pa. In short order it became a flood from Medford Lakes, N.J., Irvington, N.Y., Arvada, Colo., and all across the nation. Pictures of rosy-cheeked little girls in lace dresses and little boys who looked as though they would much rather be fishing than squirming in a photographer's studio. It is as if hundreds of thousands of American parents all thought that the high point of 1981 would be the moment when they could say to their friends and neighbors, "Did you see my kid in the catalogue? He's the one holding the socket wrenches."

The plan seemed innocent enough. Sears, Roebuck officials asked parents to send in recent snapshots of their children for possible use in the 1981 spring/summer catalogue; ten boys and ten girls in four categories (ages one to six and seven to 16) would be picked by a panel of hired judges. "We thought it would generate some interest not only in sending in entries but also in coming into our stores to pick up entry blanks," says Robert O. Jones, national director of catalogue sales for the giant retailing chain. Sears expected about 15,000 entries. But envelopes began pouring in to the Sears Tower in Chicago; then came huge canvas mailbags, each stuffed to the brim with 1,000 snapshots. In just two days in mid-April, the company received a total of more than 50,000 snapshots. "It seems like we got a lot from small towns," says Jones. "Florida was big, big, big. I don't know, maybe it's because there are so many grandmothers in Florida and they all feel they have great-looking grandchildren." Sears executives now estimate the final tally may top a quarter of a million.

Recalls Jones: "One woman called from Miami on the last day of the contest to ask how she could get her pictures to us in time. I said we closed around 4 p.m. Just at four, a special courier came into the office. She had hired him to fly the pictures here and beat the deadline."

To handle the torrent of arriving mail, which turned some areas of the Sears Tower into replicas of a post office at Christmastime, the company hired 15 temporary employees just to open envelopes, sort the pictures according to age and sex, make photocopies and file them all in alphabetical order.

Then teams of judges like Pat O'Donnell and Sherie Ross took over. The two young women are photostylists at ETM Studio, a company of professional photographers that Sears is using in some of the preliminary judging. Twice a day for a period of about two hours they take their places in front of a table on the sixth floor of an aging warehouse located just north of Chicago's Loop and set to work on candidates in the seven-to-16 boys' category. Spread out before them on a cluttered table are two cardboard boxes, one filled with snapshots still to be examined, the other with pictures that have passed the first test. At their feet is an even larger box loaded with rejects.

Pat describes the type that Sears wants: "There's a certain something about him that's hard to put into words. He's cute, but it's much more than that. There's a certain something in his eyes or in the way he holds his body. You can see that he's a happy kid, relaxed and not afraid, even though he may be crying. Here," Pat continues, holding an 8-by-10 color print. "You wouldn't call him cute, but he's got personality." The picture in her hand shows a chubby, sandy-haired lad about ten. His hair is not too well combed and a splash of freckles dots his face. One ear looks slightly lower than the other. Both stick out a good deal.

A glance through the stack of snapshots reveals that a large number of Americans have not mastered even the intricacies of the Kodak Instamatic. The two preliminary judges are often called upon to make a determination about a picture that is hopelessly out of focus or, worse, has the subject's head cut off. "It's really difficult to judge a child if you can't see his face," Sherie says mildly. By contrast, there are sacks of "portraits" by professional photographers from the four cor ners of the U.S., all of whom seem to use the same backdrops. A Tacoma, Wash., boy appears posed before a pristine snow scene, which makes a certain amount of sense. But then, a boy from Gainesville, Fla., is posed in the same setting.

There are thousands of boys and girls togged out in every imaginable kind of sports equipment. It is obvious too that the makers of Superman costumes are doing a bang-up business. Sherie and Pat have separated out scores of smiling children who have absolutely nothing in common except their costumes: the bright red and blue leotards of the man from Krypton. Shots of younger kids in bathtubs are also very big. Often parents use ingenious props to cover strategic areas. Among the judges at ETM, the favorite is a shot of a blond four-year-old from Fort Wayne, Ind., whose bare body is mostly covered by a broad white necktie that dangles down just far enough.

So far, of the quarter of a million snap shots, two seem to take the honors for eccentricity. One came from a woman in Oliveburg, Pa., who dyed her young son's blond hair black, dressed him in a white lame suit, placed a microphone in his right hand and posed him in front of an Elvis Presley poster. The other came from a man in Red Bank, N.J., who sent in a handsome picture of Pippin--his dog.

When the preliminary judges winnow the pile of entries to a more or less work able 300, the finalists' pictures will go to a Chicago modeling agency that will pick the top five in each of the four categories. Later this month, along with their proud parents, the winners will be flown to Chicago. Sears will put them all up at hotels, have them photographed for the spring spring/summer catalogue, and pay them $40 an hour--the going wage for professional models. Meanwhile, as Pat and Sherie work on, the search narrows. "If I see another kid with a baseball cap turned sideways on his head, I'll scream," says Sherie. "Eek!"

--By Steven Holmes

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