Dixie Chopper 'cooks' up publicity

Dixie Chopper R & D employee Mark Crowder worked the grill

GREENCASTLE, IN — When it comes to generating publicity to highlight a particular attribute of its products, Dixie Chopper, the lawnmower manufacturer headquartered near here, is in a class by itself. Take its latest stunt, for example.

The folks in its research and development department, to promote the company’s new propane-powered model, equipped one with a LP gas tabletop grill. As a company employee mowed a residential property near here with a Dixie Chopper mower with a Generac propane engine, he simultaneously cooked hamburger patties on the grill on the back of the unit. When the mowing was over, everybody at the property, including the homeowners, helped themselves to the burgers.

Crowder then did some yard work while the burgers cooked.

The grilling was made possible by installing a special LP tank that fed vapor to run the grill (a Fathers’ Day gift to company founder Art Evans from one of his sons, incidentally), while the mower ran off the liquid propane tank that comes standard on the company’s new propane model.

In the early 1990s this manufacturer put a 150-hp Chinook helicopter engine on one of its mowers to demonstrate the durability of the machine. The company reaped a huge a publicity boost when the mower ended up on ABC’s “Home Improvement,” the popular television comedy starring Tim Allen.