FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT: Dave Thomas

1. The Ice Follies had the rights to the Sesame Street characters at one point during Thomas’ performing career. He was the first person to ever play Grover on ice.

2. Thomas once traded a pair of tickets to a Disney on Ice show to a Hooter’s waitress to have her nametag. He still has the nametag up on shelf in his home. The nametag reads, “Hot Lips.”

3. Frick and Frack were the original comedic duo from Sweden who performed with the Ice Follies. When Frack was no longer able to skate, Thomas played Mr. Frick’s straight man from 1973-1977.

4. As a member of the Siesta Key Association, Thomas is the sole member of the Manatee Protection Committee. Along with some help from Mote, Thomas has gotten many caution signs put up on docks and in areas on Siesta Key where boaters and watercrafts tend to go too fast and endanger the manatees who swim in the area.

5. Always an animal lover, Thomas and Judy visited a pet store in Cleveland during one of their stops for a show and bought a Sheltie named Casey in the mid-1970s. Casey traveled with the couple for 10 years from hotel to hotel and later on in the couple’s RV trailer. Casey retired to New York with Thomas’ aunt and uncle and lived to be 17 years old.

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