The Inter-Mountain photo From left, The Inter-Mountain’s Lori Smith, Michelle Smith and Kristi Groves work to open up the Wild Wednesday event at The IM main office Wednesday morning, as Verle Harper is the first on line at 6 a.m.

ELKINS — Many area residents were waiting in line at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning at the main office of The Inter-Mountain for the “Wild Wednesday” promotion that officially kicked off at 6 a.m

Customers who braved the cold elements, with morning temperatures in the teens, were somewhat surprised when it was their turn in line to buy as they found out many of the hotly anticipated 2X Tuesday gift certificates had already been purchased. 

In fact, most of the gift certificates from the 30 participating businesses were completely sold out by 8 a.m.

“I was very pleased by the effort of our advertising staff that gathered up the gift cards from area merchants. Based on the success of this year’s promotion, we will most likely try to have more gift cards next year,” Inter-Mountain Publisher Steve Herron said. 

“Our Wild Wednesday promotion has traditionally been a fun time at The Inter-Mountain.  Customers purchasing newspapers get a chance to see what values area businesses are offering in the newspaper for Black Friday, and this is a great opportunity for our circulation department to raise funds for our Newspaper in Education program,” Herron said. 

Wednesday’s edition of The Inter-Mountain included coupons and sales flyers offering $20,973.70 in potential savings.

Sales of the holiday edition –priced at $1.50 — began Wednesday morning and will continue today.

The Wild Wednesday edition is available at The Inter-Mountain’s main office at 520 Railroad Avenue in Elkins.