Oh let me be your teddy bear [music]
I'm Jackie Miley and I hold the Guinness World Records title for the largest
collection of teddy bears located here in Hill City South Dakota and we are at
Teddy Bear Town where my collection is displayed. First of all my oldest bear,
she is from 1905, she is now 111 years old and if you know the history of teddy
bears the first one became a teddy bear in 1902.
I came to Hill City 14 years ago with one little bear that I made 16 years ago
in a Build a bear and this is what started me getting into the collection.
From there we go on we've got bears that are popular with the kids and movies,
we've got Frozen over here from the movie or we've got the mean little bear
Lotso from Toy Story 3. Bears have traveled all over, from all over the
world. I've got some from every US state now
including Alaska and Hawaii and 28 different countries.
I've got people's very first bears, I've got bears a memory of people who have passed
we've got bears from England we've got from Sweden
we've got bears from companies like Pepsi we've got Germany we've got
Scotland we got Wales and then we get into our presidential. This is my
community centre, I've even got President Obama and bears that came from
NASA. Now the bear itself did not go into space but the flags and the pin
that he's wearing have been donated by a gentleman who works in the
aerospace program in in Texas. Speaking of space a very familiar face
would be Darth Vader. Build-a-bear themselves sent me this one.
And we've got military bears, we've also got Star Trek and then we get into our
sports section I've got sports teams or if the Bears play golf tennis racecars do whatever.
And we go down as far down as Botswana Africa where this little teddy bear was made down there.
All nice and curly tight little knit.
We got bears in disguises yes this is a bear he's in disguise.
We continue on... One of our first talking bears was Teddy Ruxpin the first talking
bear a lot of kids wanted him and some kids were scared of him.
And then there was a TV show a lot of kids remember
we've got Christmas bears from all the different department stores and people
that have made them and this guy we've got bears that dance insane
we've got our motorcycle bears he'll see our part of the country in South Dakota
is known for Sturgis the big motorcycle rally so we've got bears but there are
little helmets and jackets that bear is a memory of people of past we've got
little toys some people that donate some pictures to go with them we've got those
more sports where people take them to the games take pictures and send them
back I've got one from Russia sings in Russian I don't know what he says
exactly because I don't speak Russian it could be Justin Bieber for all I know
we've got one shelf along here of poo he was a very popular bear with kids and
we've got our ties and we've got Muffy's and we've got ones that sing from
for Manny and we've got smokey he's a very popular bear in the United States
because and we've got other famous bears Jacques bear stole named after coastal
Ireland bears that have been down in Chicago taking pictures before they get
here and then we can go around
special-made bears bears the memory of got some made out of people's clothes
the memory of them Harlan Stu V from Iowa George Iowa his
family brought him in a couple years ago yeah I've got quite a few unfortunately
I got bears that were brought over from the Highlands of Scotland got their
little kilt on and we all know what's under that kilt and poo he deserved his
own hundred acres over here and of course we've got to have Elvis see
we've got clown bears we've got Boyd's bears
we've got people's very first bears here
got bears that are special made for me like from Tennessee now more and more a
woman from Arizona knew she was coming in crocheted the colors of the Arizona
flag you name it there's a bear that represents it
this couple just met I got this fair years ago and a woman from Missouri
brought this one I said oh he's been waiting for a girlfriend so they make a
lovely couple don't they I loaned him my binoculars and he wanted to go on
vacation
remember Justin Timberlake when he was an instinct or maybe you remember the
Blues Brothers I can't have two alike so I only have one we've got Dumb and
Dumber we got sockitumi from laugh-in it's a house of memories and I'm just
the keeper of those memories.