T-SHIRTS ARE BIG BUSINESS FOR SOME

When Rhoda Reeves processed her first "real order" for screen printed T-shirts, it took two weeks to fill the 200-shirt order for the local Girls Scouts.

"We cured the shirts with heat lamps," said Reeves, president of Horizon Screen Printing Inc. "That was a slow process."

Now, that 200-shirt order would be a 15-minute job.

Horizon Screen Printing, which made a hobby-to-business transformation during the early 1980s, produces more than 2 million shirts a year.

"We send orders to more than 20 states," said Glenn Reeves, who joined his wife in the operations when he retired after 33 years with Sears, Roebuck and Co.

These stories and others are filling notebooks for Nancy Stears Bercaw and Thomas Bullington, as they visit screen printing operations during a T-shirt Nation Tour, which will take them into 40 shops in eight states.

And, this is just the start. Additional tours are on the drawing board, which will take the two journalists across the country.

Bercaw is editorial director for Virgo Publishing Inc., headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., which publishes a trade magazine, Imprintables Today, for the screen printing industry. Bullington is managing editor of Imprintables.

"We wanted to visit all types of screen printing operations and meet some of our readers," Bercaw said. "We want to tell some real stories of real people who drive this business, and we want to discuss the future of T-shirts in the American society.

The screen printing industry is often neglected for news from so-called movers and shakers, Bercaw said. Little is heard about what happens in the daily lives of people like Calvin Cotton of Eureka Springs, Ark., or Aubrey Harding, of J. Harding and Co., one of the industry at Houston.

Or, Rhoda and Glenn Reeves of Horizon Screen Printing Co.

"We visited Cotton," Bercaw said. "He operates a one-man shop in a cabin in the woods."

Bercaw and Bullington also visited J. Harding and Co., which operates 24 hours a day.

Tuesday the journalists were in Cape Girardeau touring the Horizon Screen Printing operation.

The T-shirt industry has become big business over the past two decades.

"They have become a stylish and stable thing," Bullington said. "People can speak without speaking. The quality of the T-shirt has improved and people are paying a lot more for T-shirts."

The T-shirt is no longer just a simple white cotton T-shirt, which was previously worn as an undergarment by men.

Now worn by men and women as leisure-look outerwear, T-shirts are now being made in velour, rayon and nylon blends. They have become a fashion staple that isn't likely to go out of fashion any time soon.

One of the big things that has happened to the shirts is the dramatic change in intricate graphics that can be screen printed on the shirts, Reeves said.

"During the early to mid-1980s, we couldn't sell multi-color designs," Reeves said. "Now, people want many colors."

And, the process of screen printing is much easier now.

The 1980s have been heralded as the "T-shirt Decade."

One report indicates tourism and T-shirts have become synonymous.

The T-shirt boom hit a new high during the first year of the '90s.

"More than 1 billion T-shirts were sold in 1990," Bullington said.

Although Horizon Screen has some major national accounts, many of the T-shirts and designs that line the top of the walls at 430 Broadway may not be known nationally.

"We do a lot of local orders," Glenn Reeves said.

One colorful shirt points to the 100th anniversary of the Cape Capahas, a local baseball team. Another features a green alligator advertising Broussard Cajun Cuisine. Others feature a couple of annual events here, Riverfest and the Southeast Missouri District Fair.