POST SCRIPTS

3:20 - most of the crowd had left as all booths started to come down. A few of us sat around and talked about the event and how it went. We generally agreed it was a resounding success for its intended purpose. The atmosphere was very friendly, even among the competing candidates and we had lots of food and drinks. The two VIP speakers were outstand, Darryl Borquist, a Naval Officer just back from Iraq with a wealth of information about the progress he has personally seen and then of course, our VIP talk show host, Lars Larsen. Lars was a newsman for about 25 years before he turned to talk radio and he's been red hot in the ratings ever since, moving up to be among the top in the nation.

Then there were the candidate's short 3 minutes speeches just before the main attractions. I think mine was the shortest, about 2:50 seconds. I had this pretty good speech ready to go. We had been working on it, timing it and doing a lot of tweaking with five of us, then I started to walk up the stairs to the stage and speak and I think... I can't do it... so in the 6 or 7 steps it took me to walk to the podium I changed my mind, thought of a new delivery and I just winged it. I had to appologize to my helpers who worked on the prepared speech. I think I probably sounded a little rough and I forgot to mention a couple of my key points, but it was real and it was me for whatever that's worth. But, in the future I'll try to stay more on our "planned" message so I can get all the points out that we need to get out!

This event was definitely fun and like I said, it was a lot of work too, but the pay off was in meeting so many really good people and exchanging ideas. That made the work well worth it, although my 14 year old grandson might disagree. He would rather have been playing on the computer...too bad, so sad.

Even Lars Larson said he had a really good time and I really think he did too! He and his wife said they have a really good impression of the people here in Chico and genuinely liked the community.

So much planning goes into these events that the average person wouldn't believe it. It takes a lot groups to make it work and they do it for nothing, because they genuinely believe in the cause. I like that part, people doing what they believe in and for no other reason. Wish more people were like that! And this year like most years past, it was the Republican ladies of Butte County who did the majority of the hard work and planning. So kudos to them!