Superior customer service keeps our customers coming back.
Mark Shaw, Manager, Waipahu, Hawaii ColorTyme

Mark Shaw won ColorTyme's Double Diamond award for the second year in a row. He is the only ColorTyme manager to ever earn the award. See a complete photo gallery of Monday's Award Ceremony (66)

Mark Shaw is on a roll. For the second year in a row, Shaw, store manager of the Waipahu, Hawaii ColorTyme, earned the company's Double Diamond award. The Double Diamond is based on annual store revenue and is the highest award given by ColorTyme. The Waipahu location is owned by ColorTyme's most successful entrepreneur, Gary Hughes (AAA Rent-to-own).

Shaw credits the AAA team spirit for his success. "The excellent support I received from my regional manager Peter Landretti, and the confidence of AAA owner Gary Hughes, allow my team to provide our customers with superior customer service." And that, he concludes, "keeps our customers coming back." See a complete photo gallery of Monday's Award Ceremony (66)

Tony Doll (left) and Dana Goble

2005 saw ColorTyme add more new franchisees than any other year in company history. The two most recent franchisees are former Rent A Center Executive Vice Presidents Tony Doll, and Dana Goble. The pair will partner to develop ColorTyme locations surrounding Detroit, Michigan. The announcement was made during Monday's General Session. (RTO Online will publish more on Goble and Doll later this week.)

Monday's General Session featured a speech by former Major League pitcher Jim Morris. Morris was the inspiration for the movie "The Rookie" starring Dennis Quaid.

Growing up as a navy brat, Jim's family moved constantly throughout his childhood. Baseball became his way to make friends when he moved from place to place. Originally drafted in the 1st round in 1984, Jim's dream was to become a major league baseball player, but his career was derailed by a series of debilitating arm injuries before he got out of the lower minors in 1988. Instead, Jim Morris got married, raised a family of three, and got his college degree before becoming a high school science teacher and baseball coach in a financially depressed area of West Texas (he also became an All-American punter in college football at the age of 27). His baseball career was reduced to playing in beer leagues and throwing batting practice to his high school baseball team.

At the age of 35 and some 11 years after retiring from minor league baseball, Jim Morris was giving a speech to his high school team about the importance of dreams and hard work when his high school players challenged him to pursue his dream of pitching in the major leagues. Jim made the following bet with his high school team: if they won the District Championship for their division, he would tryout for the first major league team that came thru town.

Jim's team fulfilled their end of the bargain, which committed him to a big league tryout, where he miraculously threw 12 consecutive pitches at a rate of 98 mph, almost 10 mph harder than he had some 15 years earlier! Inspired by his family and students, Jim immediately signed a professional baseball contract. After just 3 months in the minor leagues and with his family and students in attendance, Jim returned to Texas as a major league player and struck out all-star Royce Clayton with a 98 mile per hour fastball in his first big league game. Jim Morris' ragtag rise from obscurity became the feel-good story of 1999. After pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2000, Jim signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers and retired from baseball in 2001.

See a complete photo gallery of Monday's General Session (61)