Gary Cornelious is a cook, foster care volunteer, nine-time blue ribbon winner for vegetables at the Iowa State Fair, and above all, a nationally recognized sign spinner.

Last year, as he worked in the kitchen of Pizza Hut on Duff Avenue, his manager asked him if he’d like to do a new event as part of an ad campaign. Now the Pizza Hut corporation is using his example in a video to train other sign spinners. He’s even a hit on Youtube. 

Cornelious was spinning his sign on Valentine’s Day and answered some questions.

Q: Why do think people want Pizza Hut more from watching you dance?

A: It’s in the Bible, Colossians 12-17; it says ‘you eat and you pray, and God gives you a good feeling, but he lets you dance and it’s divine.’ But the waitresses are the ones who push this. I didn’t know the phenomenon. They had me starting out in the back there by Wal-Mart then they started bringing me closer and then they had me come up here. The waitresses would tell me ‘Show some more! Shake it, shake it!’ We found this phenomenon then our parking lot started getting full.

Q: How long have you been in the spinning business?

A: Since last spring. I cook and I spin at the stadium. I give the pizzas at half time [during the football games]. I’m the one who goes out on the field.

Q: What cool tricks can you do?

A: I listen to 100.3 the bus; I just listen and move to the groove of the song.

The national Pizza Hut corporation came in and videotaped me. It went on iastate.edu, Craigslist, YouTube, and Facebook. Now we fill our dining room all the time, sometimes we fill it twice over.

Q: Who’s your Valentine?

A: Mine? She works at Walgreens, my little daughter. You can tell her I love her with all my heart, I admire her, I honor her and that’s so important. She got some purple roses for me; she likes purple.

Q: Is there any spinning competition?

A: Yes there are. There’s something internally that uses my video for training. They would videotape me from across the street and then show other Pizza Huts. There’s one guy that does back flips, he’s from South Dakota. I won’t do a backflip. For competition we have Little Caesar’s and the Liberty Tax guy. I’ve done it for Clearwater Golf Course, over at the stadium for football, for Mediacom and I’ve been offered about three or four jobs for this thing. But every time I go out and do this for someone else, it’s not pizza.

Q: Do you like the job?       

A: Oh yeah. I send out vibes and everyone’s throwing them right back. It’s the latest dance craze.

Q: How’d you get into this job?

A: Actually, for our campaigning, my manager asked me if I’d want to go out and preview boxes, so we started in the back and then I was moved up here.

Ninety percent of people react right back when I wave at them. They show it right back, they smile, they wave, and one girl, she was doing a Mardi Gras and just flipped up her [shirt].