[As many of you know, I serve as the Events Coordinator for the Pitt State College Republicans. This post is related to one of our events]
On the way home from our Arkansas Tea Party tour over the Independence Day holiday, Virginia Crossland-Macha began talking with me about her plans to host another large 400+ person event in SE Kansas on the Pittsburg State University Campus. We wanted to help people put to use some of the energy they’d built up over the summer to help defeat the government takeover of healthcare.
In the end, we settled on a theme for the event, based mostly on our location at the backside of the PSU Football Stadium, as “Tailgate Tea Party.” We figured it would be a great way to draw in college students and local citizens who otherwise wouldn’t attend a political event.
We lived up to the “tailgate” moniker, as well, with live music performed by Josh Hucke and the Goin’ Nowhere Band and free hot dogs and bottled water.
We had some direct resistance from the Campus Police Department, resulting in a logistical stand-off that forced our headlining speaker, Bob Basso, to use a trailer graciously provided by Josh Hucke as his dressing room. With some attendees traveling over an hour and speakers flying for several, it was terribly embarrassing to the students, faculty, and alumni of the university who were in attendance. Some participants even vowed to reconsider their donations to the school because of their treatment of our peaceful, educational event. How’s that for serious?
Frankly, our speaker list was terribly impressive, if I may brag on Virginia’s connections for a minute. We had big names in to speak from D.C., California, and, of course, more local places, such as Iola, KS, Topeka, KS, Joplin, MO, and Rogers, AR.
In all, I consider the event to have been a great success. We hosted nearly 400 people from all over the four state area at a liberal university in a strongly Democratic area of the through-and-through red state of Kansas. I continue to believe tea parties are one of the most effective ways to engage the everyday, average right-of- center American where they are right now. Our organization has surely felt this influence, and we are very appreciative of the support we’ve gained.
This Independence Day was spent differently for me than years past. Normally, I join the millions of celebrating Americans spending the day eating delicious grilled food and shooting off the biggest and loudest fireworks possible. This year, however, I got an offer from Virginia Crossland-Macha I couldn’t refuse: an all expenses paid trip to Arkansas over the holiday weekend to help out with a whopping six Tea Parties and other events, trying to round up as many signatures for the Patients Firstpetition against the government takeover of healthcare.
After arriving in Rogers, AR around 2:00 p.m. local time on Friday the third, we hurriedly dropped off our luggage at the very nice a-Loft hotel, scarfed down a burger from Steak ‘n Shake, and hopped on a Panther Navajo five-seater plane, basically a tiny puddle jumper, and headed for Batesville, AR. We dropped off two of our volunteers there, and then Teresa Crossland-Oelke and I headed for Heber Springs, AR, a tiny town of around 7,000 residents. Batesville’s event attracted 200 concerned citizens, a respectable number for their very first event, while Heber Springs impressed us even more. This tiny village in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, had a Tea Party that involved over 500 people. All in all, that night we collected over 400 signatures from those two events.
The next morning, I ate breakfast with three very interesting people, Rebecca Wales from Smart Girl Politics, Tom Ziglar, son of Zig Ziglar, and Dr. Larry Hunter, of the Social Security Institute. Ms. Wales and Mr. Ziglar spoke at the Fayetteville, AR Tea Party, while Virginia, Dr. Hunter, and I set up our Patients First booth at the Ozark Tea Party in Mountain Home, AR. After Dr. Hunter spoke on healthcare, he and I hopped back into a Crossland Construction truck, and I drove him back to Bentonville, AR so he could catch his flight back to D.C. and hopefully spend the evening of the Fourth with his family.
The Mountain Home Tea Party was incredible. Over 1,500 people showed up, and they just kept coming. Over the course of the entire weekend, we collected nearly two THOUSAND signatures, something that would normally take two months. Three-fourths of those signatures came from Mountain Home. I’m sure you can see why:
The entire football stadium was packed. There was basically no room left, whatsoever. Everywhere I turned, people were clamoring to sign the petition. It was incredibly encouraging, and heartening. Maybe we really do have a chance to stop this beast.
If you haven’t signed the petition yet, please do. All it takes is being a registered voter.
After returning home to Southeast Kansas, I went with my family to the Chetopa, KS Independence Day extravaganza. I really don’t know what else to call it- they have an intensely huge gathering in their city park for several hours in the afternoon and culminate the evening in one of the area’s best fireworks shows. Seriously, guys, kudos.
So maybe I didn’t get to shoot off crazy rockets and scream madly as I ran away from a (very short) lighted fuse, but today, I did something better: I was democracy in action: I worked for the betterment of what is still this greatest nation on earth, the United States of America.
I know some people have had a difficult time celebrating Independence Day this year; they feel our nation is teetering on the brink of collapse and that we’ve lost our way. I have to be honest; I’ve struggled with those feelings, too, but I just keep reminding myself that I’m celebrating the eternal American values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
