Posted on 03/22/2003 4:52:37 PM PST by newslady
A huge crowd of flag-waving patriots attended the New Orleans area "Rally for America" held on Friday night, March 21st from 6 to 8 PM at a beautifully-decorated park in Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. We really don’t know how many people were there, but the crowd kept growing, and WWL-TV reported "as night fell on the crowd, the numbers exploded, overflowing the park." We even had a note of support from a group of patriots from our neighboring state of Mississippi, who wanted to attend, but couldn't get here in time because of the early Friday evening time for the rally.
The purpose of this rally was to give everyone the opportunity to stand up for America and to show support for the brave Americans who are fighting for our freedom. We also wanted to show support for President Bush, who is willing to make the tough decisions needed to protect our great country. Many veterans and relatives of active duty military said they just had to be here, and these vets and relatives were represented in large numbers at the rally.
Patriot1 (Margaret Baird) did an outstanding job of organizing the rally and planning the program. She is shown below introducing David Tyree, the emcee of the New Orleans area Rally for America.
And Kenner's Mayor Louis Congemi outdid himself in setting up the park for us, including decorating it, constructing a stage, setting up a sound system, providing security, setting up chairs, setting up sign-in tables and tables to serve our donated food, etc. The city of Kenner really did itself proud in this hugely successful event.
Our Rally for America was big news in the New Orleans area. All of the local TV stations covered it--they even set up their equipment at the park two hours before the rally started, and the segments on the local news about the rally were excellent and completely positive. They included heart-tugging interviews with some of the passionately patriotic rally attendees. WNOE radio even covered the event with a live remote.
The program was wonderful, with patriotic speeches interspersed with patriotic music, live performers, patriotic dancers, and patriotic essays and poems. The talented Randy Rubelow provided live music and played CDs for some of the singers and dancers. In addition to Mayor Congemi, rally speakers included Congressional Medal of Honor winner Gen. James Livingston, Congressman David Vitter, State Senator Ken Hollis, State Representative Steve Scalise, and Louisiana Elections Commissioner Suzie Terrell.
Vince Vance (of Vince Vance and the Valiants) and his supporting singers put on a wonderful patriotic show. He was dressed in an Uncle Sam outfit, and his performance was outstanding.
Because our troops are now fighting in Iran, Vince didn’t the song, "Yakkity Yak, Bomb Iraq," as was originally planned, but he sang another song from his new patriotic album. He also brought his antique fire truck to the rally.
The crowd also loved the performance by Bruce Bellott, a talented young singer, who performed a beautiful patriotic song written by his wife, "We Still Stand Free."
Rally attendees also responded enthusiastically to the dance group, the Rising Stars, who danced to the popular patriotic song, "Proud to Be an American," and to "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
There were many touching moments during the event, but one especially touching moment at the beginning of the program was when the young mother, Bethany Wangler, led the "Pledge of Allegiance." Her husband, Marine warrant officer Paul Wangler, is at this moment fighting in Iraq. Bethany told us that her two-year old daughter, who joined her at the microphone, tells everyone, "My Daddy is a hero," when anyone asks her about her Daddy.
At the end of the event, Patriot1 read a long list of names of active duty military, who either attended the rally or had parents, grandparents, or spouses who attended the rally. This list was obtained from a sign-in sheet at the entrance to the Rally. This part of the program was so popular that many people who hadn't noticed the sign-in sheet rushed up to ask Patriot1 to announce the names of their active duty relatives, and she responded enthusiastically to their requests.
Both before and after the rally, Randy Rubelow played patriotic music for the crowd. Many of the attendees enjoyed the program so much that they didn't want to leave, and Randy accommodated them by playing a beautiful repertoire of patriotic songs.
At the beginning of the rally, Patriot1 gave full credit to Free Republic for sponsoring the nationwide Rallies for America this weekend, Liberty Weekend. And the article in The Times-Picayune about the rally stated, "The rally was sponsored by the Free Republic Network and Young Americans for Freedom." The wonderful idea to collect photographs from the Rallies for America and to load them on a CD to be sent to the troops impressed the media, since they all mentioned this in their broadcast coverage.
The New Orleans area Rally for America was a wonderful, uplifting, patriotic event, which gave vent to everyone’s emotions of support for our troops, our president, and our country. And everyone was impressed with the wonderful job that Patriot1 did in organizing the rally in merely a week and a half. We are also extremely appreciative of all of the help provided by the city of Kenner and for the wonderful job done by the rally speakers and performers, all of whom donated their services. Of course, putting together rallies in a minimum of time has become characteristic of FReepers. As a matter of fact, the following quote has been attributed to Patriot1: “Others talk, FReepers do!”
Great Job!!
We also made a 2 by 8 foot sign with information about the rally on one side, including Patriot1’s home phone number, and patriotic signs on the other side. The sign cost us almost nothing, since we stapled poster board on a recycled Congressman David Vitter sign, and used permanent markers to letter the sign. The response to this sign was outstanding, since Patriot1 lives on a busy street. The TV stations also liked the sign, and they displayed it prominently in interviews with Patriot1, which were aired on the local news shows Monday night.
These TV interviews were prompted by press releases which Patriot1 sent to all of the media last Sunday. She also sent out press releases to all of the local TV and radio stations again on Thursday. The response to the Thursday press releases was that all of the local stations covered the rally last night.
Patriot1 also recorded a message with rally information which we used to make automatic phone calls to selected groups in our database.
This was a monumental effort in a week and a half, but Patriot1 did it like a true FReeper.
Great photos! Great job! We will survive this and then the anti-war roaches can go back to their holes.
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