Illustration by Tabi Walters
On July 3, hundreds of people thronged the intersection of S. Ashley and W. Liberty to watch a live segment from Good Morning America. GMA, as the show is known, picked Ann Arbor as part of its focus on small businesses across the country, and to highlight the city’s 200th birthday.
As the cameras rolled, plenty of local places got a moment in the spotlight with ABC News correspondent Alex Presha, including Blank Slate Creamery (which rolled out a special ice cream flavor, Vault of Midnight), the Fleetwood Diner, and Downtown Home & Garden. The Community High jazz band was on hand to play.
But only one had a presence in GMA’s studio back in New York City, where the four cohosts, including Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos, munched on maize-and-blue doughnuts from the Washtenaw Dairy. The pastries were displayed on a milk glass cake stand on a coffee table in front of the hosts, along with the Dairy’s colorful T-shirts.
The Dairy wasn’t in the original lineup. In late June, when owner Mary Raab heard the show was coming to town, she posted on the Dairy’s social media, asking if anyone had a connection to ABC. A customer (she doesn’t know who) called someone at the show.
An hour later, Raab was walking into the Dairy when a staff member told her that GMA was on the line. “I said, ‘Move aside, get me to the phone!’”
Producer Faryn Shiro asked if the Dairy could supply doughnuts with colors that were meaningful in Ann Arbor and which matched GMA’s blue-and-yellow logo. “I said, ‘Sure, we can do that,’” Raab replied.
The Dairy regularly makes blueberry doughnuts and had produced lemon-flavored icing, so “we had the building blocks,” Raab explains. “We tweaked the lemon color to be more, more, more than the light lemon color” they had made in the past, then stirred in lots of lemon juice and lemon zest and topped some with maize and blue sprinkles.
Raab added several T-shirts, intending them to be souvenirs, and took the box to FedEx. Next-morning delivery cost $270, but everything arrived safely, as evidenced by the display on camera. “Whoever did the set design on the table did a really nice job,” she says. “As many people mentioned that as talked about the doughnuts.”
Back in Ann Arbor, Dairy staffer Tod Durkin got a few seconds on-air and the Dairy passed out ten dozen doughnuts to the crowd. Raab estimates her total expense was around $500—well worth it for the national exposure.
Related: Mary Jean Raab
Doughnut Medicine
I Spy: Washtenaw Dairy
That was so fun that they visited Ann Arbor again. But it is spelled ‘Donuts’ most anywhere in Michigan. Just an FYI!
You’re right about the prevailing usuage – it’s even “donuts” in our own style guide (which, obviously, we neglected to consult).