Ron Trompke didn’t believe his wife, Kathy, when she told him about the 15-foot Superman statue in downtown Metropolis, Ill.
When the couple decided to road trip across the United States, they found the statue and the town along the way to their final destination in Virginia.
The Trompkes, full-time RVers from Fair Grove, Mo., had grown up watching Christopher Reeve as Superman in the movies. The Superman statue stands guard in front of the courthouse overlooking the main street. The Trompkes, posing like perfect tourists, snapped some photos before moving over to the Superman cutouts.
Many people visit Metropolis, the only town in the United States that bears the same name of Superman’s city, to honor the superhero they grew up watching.                                    “do y’all know you’re the home of superman?”
Superman inhabited the pages of DC comics for 39 years before Metropolis, Ill., became associated with the Man of Steel.
Kentucky-born Bob Westerfield moved to Metropolis in 1972, noted the name of the town and asked, “Do y’all know you’re the home of Superman?” Becky Lambert, a real estate agent in Metropolis, said Westerfield was the one who pushed to have the town recognized as Superman’s official hometown.
“It took an outsider to come into Metropolis to go, ‘You’re missing the boat here, people,’” she said.
Residents officially adopted Superman as their own on Jan. 21, 1972. Later that year, the Illinois Legislature also made it official.
Metropolis’ tourism bureau took this chance to get the town’s name out. In 1978, the town hosted the first Superman Celebration, now a four-day event honoring Metropolis’ most famous citizen.
Lambert, who has helped plan the celebration for about 10 years, said an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Super fans trek to the annual celebration each June. Enthusiasts participate in various events such as the Supergirl and Superboy contest and take a spin on one of the Superland carnival rides.
Since the early ’90s, Superman celebrities appeared at the celebration. Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luthor on the WB television program “Smallville,” Stephan Bender, who played the young Superman in the 2006 film “Superman Returns,” and Noel Neill, who played the first Lois Lane, were guests at the June 2006 celebration.
“All the celebrities have been great to work with,” Lambert said. “I mean, they're coming into Podunk. It’s like they’re going into Hazzard County.”
The celebration not being complete without Superman himself, a Metropolis resident donned the cape and tights until 2000 when the Chamber of Commerce looked for an official Superman. Lambert said that after the chamber sent a press release to the Paducah Sun in Kentucky, The Associated Press picked up on the search.
“That search-for-Superman story ran worldwide,” Lambert said. “We had hundreds of applicants from everywhere, even from Japan.”
Applicants from across the United States, Australia and England sent in résumés, tapes and photos. However, Lambert said they asked for an additional piece of information.
“You need[ed] to wear a size 11 shoe because we had the costume and we had boots,” she said.
Although the Chamber of Commerce wanted a local for the part, Lambert said the top choice was Scott Cranford, an actor from Glendale, Calif. With an offer of only $500 for the gig, Cranford accepted the job as Metropolis’ official Superman. Each year he returns to Metropolis to play Superman.
One of his appearances was Super-special.
Lambert said she got to know Cranford and his fiancée well enough that she convinced them to postpone their wedding and have it in Metropolis.
“They’d planned to be married the weekend of the Superman celebration in Los Angeles, but he decided to be Superman instead,” she said. “So, I talked him into postponing that wedding for a year, and we had it here as a real Superman wedding.”
Even without the celebration, Metropolis residents find ways to honor their hometown hero. The Metropolis Drug Store welcomes customers with a flying Superman over the entrance, and the gas station off of U.S. Route 24 has Superman and Superwoman cutouts.
With each new movie, TV series and article, Metropolis receives a bit more recognition.
“Anything that happens that can help shed some light on us, … especially around celebration time, that’s a good thing,” Lambert said.                                                                       truth – justice – the american way
Jim Hambrick realized his growing collection of Superman memorabilia was too large to drag around the United States in a mobile home.
Hambrick, the owner of the Super Museum in Metropolis, said he began collecting Superman memorabilia in 1959 as a boy when he received a lunch box from his mother. But instead of his childhood passion dying out, collecting became his life.
“It wasn’t even cool,” he said. “We were closet collectors, grown men collecting toys.”
The Super Museum houses 75,000 of Hambrick’s collectibles, which Hambrick said he likes to rotate every so often. Every square inch of the museum is covered with something from each Superman generation: Superman’s first telephone booth, glass-encased kryptonite, Clark Kent suits and ties and the first Superman costume, now faded to a dingy blue.
Phyllis Salbeda of Fulton, Ky., said she and her husband, Paul, grew up watching George Reeves as TV’s first Superman. Although Paul had visited Metropolis once before, Phyllis wanted to experience the town herself.
“I almost got teary-eyed,” she said after touring the Super Museum with her husband, daughter and four grandchildren.
Hambrick attributes the town’s popularity to its national icon, a hero that has stood for all things good, a hero he calls wholesome.
“What town this size wouldn’t love a hook like Superman?” he said.