Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a familiar 5-letter proper noun.
Answer: K-MART
Correct entries: 319

Five entries scattered throughout last week’s grid had something in common: they were words consisting of an initial letter pronounced as the letter, followed by a standard word:

17-A: [Amazon’s business] = E-COMMERCE
19-A: [“Fun, Fun, Fun” Ford] = T-BIRD
27-D: [Hoops] = B-BALL
30-D: [Weapon used in WWII] = A-BOMB
48-D: [Genre for BTS] = K-POP.

Finding those was Step 1. Step 2 was looking at what words those initial letters stand for:

E-COMMERCE = ELECTRONIC
T-BIRD = THUNDER
B-BALL = BASKET
A-BOMB = ATOMIC
K-POP = KOREAN

Step 3: Find a word in the grid comprised of the letters in those extractions, minus an extra letter. In grid order, those words are:

1-A: BEATS is BASKET minus the K
16-A: COATI is ATOMIC minus the M
38-A: KRONE is KOREAN minus the A
45-A: HUNTED is THUNDER minus the R
58-A: RECONCILE is ELECTRONIC minus the T

Those extracted letters spell K-MART, whose K stands for this guy.

Meg says:

Happy Thanksgiving leftovers!

TMart writes:

I hope my screen name isn’t a spoiler…

Eckless thought so:

And, ironically, the most recent solver on the list right now is “TMart” 🙂

EBud27 saw it, too:

Just checked the leaderboard before submitting, and the last solver was TMart. Seems like an unfair advantage.

Megan Amram keeps it going:

I feel s-mart

And finally, Mollie writes:

ELECTRONIC/RECONCILE- very nice!!

A lucky find that saved the whole puzzle. I really needed that extracted T.

TEN 3-MONTH GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS TO MGWCC AVAILABLE, FREE OF CHARGE:

Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous MGWCC solver, I have ten free 3-month MGWCC gift subscriptions available to give out upon request. So if you know of a solver who you think would dig these metas, please e-mail me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com with GIFT SUBSCRIPTION in the subject line and we’ll get them hooked up today.

You may recall that a few super-backers organized a similar giveaway earlier this year, which was a big success (we added about 25 new subscribers from it), so thanks to the anonymous friend of MGWCC for doing this holiday giveaway.

2019 PRIZES UPDATE:

All 2019 Solo prizes have (finally!) gone out, and all the Group prizes are going out tomorrow. So if you’re owed one and it doesn’t arrive soon, let me know and I’ll see what’s what.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a country.