States. In 1973, Pace sold the company, which it had kept as a separate entity, together with National Oven Products, for $1.3 million, to Dakota Bake-N-Serv, headquartered in Jamestown, North Dakota. Within a year of the purchase, the new parent company remodeled the Spudnut headquarters in Salt Lake City, and retired "Mr. Spudnut", the company symbol, replacing him with a design showing a spudnut with a bite taken out of it. The mix for the company's signature product continued to be produced at the company plant in Salt Lake City, available as 50 pound bags of dry ingredients or as frozen dough. However, the owner of Dakota Bake-N-Serv became involved in a huge, proposed marina development in the Sacramento River Delta, selling all of his stock to a promoter in exchange for tax-free bond notes that proved worthless. When the promoter was convicted on several charges of fraud and conspiracy in 1979, it was the end of Spudnuts as a chain. The parent company was closed, leaving all the franchisees to fend for themselves. By late 1989, there were only 28 franchise stores open. The Spudnuts brand has not disappeared completely, with some 35 Spudnut Shops in nine states still open. A single outlet in Canada was taken over by a bakery shop in 2009, but still bakes the treat once a week. Over the history of Spudnuts, there were over 600 stores around the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In 1975, there were 170 Spudnut outlets in Japan. In January 2011, Sarah Palin brought national attention to the business in a televised interview refuting President Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union address calling for the federal government to create a 'Sputnik moment'. She asserted the need for a 'Spudnuts moment' citing the success of small businesses in a free economy without federal economic interference. Ingredients With the closure of the parent company in the 1980s, the original Pelton mix was no longer available. Existing shops had to create their own recipes. In 2008, Douglas E. Bagley purportedly acquired an authentic Spudnut ingredient list from Will Bellar, who was the executive vice president and general manager of Spudnut International from 1970 to 1975. On August 16, 2012, Douglas E. Bagley and others were enjoined in federal court from using the federally registered SPUDNUTS trademark without a license by the trademark owner, MP-OTHA Corporation of Galesburg, Illinois, per stipulated injunction. In