Landing attractions lakeside

Denton Record Chronicle - August 12, 2008

LAKE DALLAS — Holly Deitrick doubts she’ll ever carry any kind of handheld computer. Instead, she plans the city’s next special event by filling a small spiral notebook with to-do lists, reminders and random thoughts.

“I love crossing stuff out,” said Deitrick, 25, who has been the city’s special events coordinator for two-and-a-half years. “I’ll never have a PDA [personal digital assistant] because I can’t physically write it down and mark it out when I’m done.”

Notebooks and a measuring wheel have become Deitrick’s favorite tools as she figures out how to do a job that has few peers in area cities. Lake Dallas was able to create the position in January 2006 after Best Western opened a hotel inside the city limits and brought hotel occupancy tax revenue to the city for the first time.

State law requires the city to spend the money on something that encourages tourism.

“We promote our lakeside to outsiders,” Deitrick said.

But the job has had a huge learning curve, she said. It took a little while to figure out what city leaders wanted.

For example, a national personal watercraft race is coming to town next month.

Full Story