A few weeks ago TIME'S Business section reported on an unusual business venture in Greeley, Colo. It was the story of Mrs. Dorothy Ferguson, a Greeley housewife, who while convalescing from a broken leg came up with an idea for her own business: making and marketing frozen cookie dough (TIME, Sept. 28). The idea caught on and soon outgrew Mrs. Ferguson's home kitchen. The venture was incorporated, and quickly became a center of community investment as Greeley townsfolk rushed to buy stock and admire the new cookie plant, where the Fergusons expect to gross $60,000 this year. Last week TIME'S Denver Correspondent Ed Ogle filed another report on the Ferguson enterprise: the story of what happened in Greeley after the TIME article appeared.

The morning the story came out. wrote Ogle, so many people stopped to congratulate Dottie that it took her a solid hour to walk one block in downtown Greeley. She and her husband and two daughters took turns answering the phone, which rang constantly. More than 100 calls were long distance. The grocer who first stocked Dottie's cookies celebrated the story with a 1-c- sale and sold out completely within an hour. All copies of TIME were sold out by noon, and both Greeley newspapers ran pictures and stories of their home-town cookie tycoon.

As response to the story continued, said Ogle, Dottie had one question: "How do you thank someone for a miracle--a wonderful, fantastic miracle that has changed a family's life?" One of the changes was an immediate run on her cookies. For example, within ten days, her manager reported, 65% of the stores in Omaha, Neb. were stocking her cookies. A large chain grocery store, which had turned down her cookies before, carried them in all stores within a week after the story appeared. Sales in Denver and the rest of Colorado have tripled.

Dottie's biggest surprise, however, was the number of people who wanted to buy franchises, distributorships, or simply invest in her business. There was a call from Miami offering to invest $50,000. After reading the TIME story, three prominent brokerage firms in Minneapolis bid for a franchise or distribution rights. Ten West Coast firms did the same. A Texas syndicate hired a Denver attorney to make a bid in person. As a result, said Dottie, her company is reorganizing to set up a system of franchises, "something we thought was as far away as a dream and would take years to do."

Another surprise to Dottie was the number of would-be investors who enclosed money in their letters. Said she: "Cash money, I mean. It's a real tribute to the faith people have in TIME." One man from Hot Springs, Ark. enclosed a check for $200 and a note reading: "As an inveterate cookie gobbler, I'm interested to know whether you have any unsold shares of common stock lying around." From as far away as Norway and Australia came letters and cablegrams. Said Dottie: "I almost dropped dead when I got a cable from South Africa. Imagine, a cable from South Africa! Is there anywhere that TIME isn't read?"

Other people have been affected by the story, too, says Dottie. "Businessmen, bankers, the Chamber of Commerce, all kinds of people in Greeley have been receiving letters."

Many people, particularly women, wrote to ask advice on starting their own small businesses. From New Jersey a potential investor wrote:

"I think America's initiative is the greatest thing in the world, and you are a living example of what can be accomplished in a capitalistic country."

Mrs. Ferguson, says Correspondent Ogle, is pretty humble about her success, which she sums up this way: "It restores your faith in human beings and in America. Everyone always says you have to be 'big' to make any money or get anywhere today--that there is no place any more for the little fellow. It just isn't so, and we've proved it. I think our story gave the American way of life a shot in the arm."

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