qtion news

Mississippi Building Material Dealers Association will hold its midyear board of directors and committee meetings Aug. 6-7 at the Silver Star Resort & Casino, Philadelphia, Ms.

Mid-America Lumbermens Association is organizing a "field trip" to the Aug. l5-18 National Hardware Show and National Building Products Exposition in Chicago, Il. (See story on p. 3O for more details on the show.)

MLA has arranged for reduced rates on Southwest Airlines, reserved a block of hotel rooms, and scheduled a dinner for all MLA attendees to get together and compare notes.

Lumbermen's Association of Texas has named Susan C. "Susi" Tyler, Certified Meeting Planner, as its new meetings and events manager. Lynn Fisher resigned to join the Texas

Apartment Association.

Coverage of LAT's recent convention appears on the next three pages.

Lowe's Tabs New Agency

Lowe's Cos. has named McCannErickson as ad agency for its $100 million broadcast account.

Lowe's, a household name in the Southeast. decided to rethink its tv advertising as it ventures into the West (see April, p. 36). The chain is undecided as to whether it will retain its "Lowe's Knows" tagline.

McCann-Erickson, which has created ads for MasterCard, Black & Decker and Coca-Cola, replaces W.B. Doner, Lowe's agency since 1990. The firm will develop broadcast ads and handle media buying for tv, radio, magazines and billboards. An inhouse staff at Lowe's takes care of the more basic print ads.

Lowe's, without disclosing its total ad budget, said it will increase about 2OVo thisyear.

Repair & Remodeling Report

Residential repair and remodeling used 13.8 billion bd. ft. of lumber, T.l billion sq. ft. of structural panels, and 2.7 billion sq. ft. of non-structural panels in 1997, according to a new Wood Products Council report.

Of those figures, 82Vo of all the fumber, Sl%o of all the structural panels. and 84Vo of all the non-structural panels were used for additions and alterations. Overall residential repair and remodeling expenditures, when converted to constant 1992 dollars, reached nearly $100 billion in 1997, $l I billion below 1988's record level.

From 1986 to 1997, expenditures for major replacements remained stable at $20 billion. Dollars for additions and alterations averaged $43 billion per year, while fluctuating wildly between a high in 1988 of $48 billion and a low of $31 billion in 1991.

Maintenance and repair expenditures averaged $42 billion annually, increasing from 1986 through 1990 to $52 billion, before steadily falling to $32 billion in 1997.