KNOXVILLE — Lorraine Beeler, 57, has worked the register at the gift shop by Gate 10 at Neyland Stadium for eleven years, and since the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum announced a bobblehead of the Smokey statue on Friday she has been asked the same question about forty times. People want to know if the real one nods now.
“It doesn’t, it’s bronze,” Beeler said. “The little one nods, that’s what it’s for. I told a man that Saturday morning and he said, so who’s nodding? Nobody, sir. He wanted it explained with the dog in it, so now I just do it.” She nodded twice. “Then I hold still for the big one. You have to hold still a good while or they think you’re nodding slower.”
The line at her register has gotten longer. One woman asked whether the statue could be put on a spring if enough people wrote in, and Beeler told her that would be Facilities and the shop didn’t have a say.
Beeler has not seen the bobblehead yet. “I’d like to,” she said. “I’ve been doing it off the description.”