Arabian Gulf Ballcap Giveaway wrapped up

Independence officially wrapped up its unique Ballcap Giveaway contest by leaving the Arabian Gulf recently and giving away a total of fifteen "Don't Tread on Me" captain's ballcaps accompanied by fifteen ship's photos.

While Indy was in the Gulf, she held the contest through her command world wide website drawing in more than 7,500 entrants. A winner was chosen each Friday.

Indy's Commanding Officer, Capt. Mark R. Milliken, picked a random number from the entrants each week and the winner was notified by e-mail. Once the winner responded, Milliken signed the ballcap and photo personally congratulating each winner. The winners came from all over the United States and the world as Indy's last winner was from Nottingham, Great Britain.

"This was a great way to bring back visitors to our site so they would continue to know what we were doing here in the Gulf," Milliken said. "I enjoyed being able to be a part of the giveaway and I think we made a lot of lucky winners really happy."

The winners' backgrounds varied from frequent visitors to the site, to first-time visitors. Two winners turned out to be previous crewmembers of Independence, one a plankowner and the other serving aboard in 1966. Indy's first winner has a cousin aboard, while the seventh winner has a son aboard. One Californian winner has a boyfriend serving aboard Indy and another Californian winner was visiting the site for the first time after he watched the Montel William's Show highlighting the Independence.

From Florida to California the winners came from all over the States, and the entrants were from all over the world. E-mail entrants came from France, Sweden, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hawaii, Alaska and many other regions in the world.

The contest wrestled up Indy lives from her past...

"I am an official Plankowner of the great USS Independence," Indy's 12th Ballcap winner, John S. Pink, Jr. from San Antonio, Texas said. "I served aboard her, beginning as a firewatch during her construction in the Brooklyn Navy Yard sometime in mid-1958, until the end of my enlistment in October 1960. I was on all the shake-down cruises, the first Med Cruise, etc. Winning this ballcap means a lot to me."

And Indy lives of her present...

"I found the site through a link on one of my friend's homepage," Indy's 13th winner, Beka Baumgartner from Rocheport, Mo. said. "I stop by every time that I'm in the computer lab to see if my friend is on the Notepad page -- he's made it twice."

Showing once again that Independence is the "Oldest and Finest," her web site Ballcap Contest was highlighted on a Navy/Marine Corps News Program demonstrating Indy's ability to continue to set the pace for professionalism and forward deployed thinking.