America's wurst driver

SUSSEX COUNTY-When you're America's "wurst" driver, you don't have time to "ketchup" on your reading, because if you want to pass "mustard," you'd better get your buns in gear. To be frank, driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is "pun"-ishing work. It is, said "Sauerkraut Shaun" Hanna and "Cold Cut Katie" Schroeder, a "coast to coast wiener roast" in a vehicle that gets "about 20-30 smiles per gallon." The pair of "Hotdoggers" is on the first leg of a tour that will take them to every one of the Lower 48 states. On Monday, Aug. 15, they pulled into the ShopRite Plaza in Hanna's home town of Byram, where they hosted a cook out, distributed wiener whistles to excited kids and drew delighted stares from passersby. Hanna hails from the Forest Lakes section of Byram Township. A 2001 alumnus of Lenape Valley Regional High School, he is a recent graduate of Cedarville University in Ohio, where a marketing course he took sent him on the road from brat to wurst. The professor who taught the course used the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile as an example of good public relations. The thought of driving the 27-foot-long motorized sausage sent chili running up Hanna's spine. "Hot dog, that's for me," he thought, although not in those exact words. To demonstrate how much he wanted the job, he sent in "lots of resumes, just so they knew I was serious and wanted it badly." Schroeder, his co-pilot and partner in bad jokes, is from the Midwest and is a graduate of Pittsburgh State University in Kansas. She fell in love with the idea of driving a Wienermobile n there are six of them - while doing online research for a class paper. Rather than send in a letter, Schroeder drove 60 miles to personally introduce herself to the keepers of the Wienermobile. The first Wienermobile hit the road in 1936. The promotion was eventually suspended, but resurrected by Kraft Foods, owners of the Oscar Mayer brand, in 1988. The cars have proved so popular that a fleet of six is constantly traveling America, each with a pair of Hotdoggers at the wheel. Each car, whose horn plays the Oscar Mayer theme song, makes about 500 appearances during a year-long tour of duty. According to a Web site, the job pays the equivalent of a first-year office position out of college. Before taking over their car, Schroeder and Hanna attended Oscar Mayer's Hot Dog High, where they majored in "hotdogology and ketchup." On graduation, they took the Hotdogger Oath, which reads in part: "As official Hotdogger of the celebrated Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, I salami swear to uphold the dogma set forth here. . . As once I wished I were, now I am -- an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Hotdogger." Hanna and Schroeder began their year behind the wheel in June and have been through 14 states and Ontario, Canada. As they are both from small towns, "We condiment each other," said Schroeder, to which Hanna retorted, "She's full of baloney." With the timing of Abbot & Costello, these two young representatives are making memories for themselves and for all those they meet. Hanna concluded, "We are relishing every moment of it."