We had a great turnout for our event today. The early morning clouds and rain exited and it was a awesome day weather-wise for the event. The walkup number turned out pretty good.
I got there about 11:00 for a 1:00 event to help set up, but the early-arriving crew were pretty much done. And someone else beat me there too:
Of course, I got a little bit of an early start on the eating and drinking. It also gave me an opportunity to check out the silent auction items. Wonder of wonders, I actually brought my checkbook!
A little before 1:00 the crabs arrived and so did the real crowd. I have a couple shots taken during the day that give you an idea of the turnout we had.
While the food and fellowship was fun enough (not to mention the silent auction, door prize, and 50/50 raffle) the political junkies also wanted the opportunity to meet at least two of the challengers to incumbent Congressman Wayne Gilchrest. In this case, I’m going to work in chronological order of arrival. And as you’ll see in the next shot I wasn’t the only local blogging correspondent there.
While Andy Harris had some advance personnel there, in reality the first Congressional candidate to arrive was John Leo Walter. He took the prudent step upon meeting me of praising my work on monoblogue. Complements aside, I did speak to him for a few minutes and he certainly came across to me as planted squarely in the conservative camp and probably the most “average Joe” in the race. John’s facing a pretty steep learning curve as far as running a race goes, though.
As I mentioned earlier, Andy Harris had a little more of an entourage. Also I was told this was stop number three of six today. But the yard signs were plentiful and in place and Andy was warmly greeted by a number of folks there today.
Last night I wondered aloud if the change in Wayne Gilchrest’s Bull Roast to the fourth Saturday in September (which, by the way, conflicts with Yom Kippur) wasn’t made to allow him to make it to the Crab Feast. Sure enough, the Congressman made it down.
I must say that in maybe a five minute timespan Wayne managed to talk about heading down to our traditional Crab Feast (although he’s missed at least the previous two I attended), the Canadian geese heading south, and evoke the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. among other things. Very philosophical. I did get to speak to him a little bit as well since I’d never met the man, so I did mention the upcoming Wicomico County Straw Poll. Still disagree on him on a bunch of things, but I can’t say he’s not a pleasant sort of guy.
In discussing the Straw Poll, I kidded Wayne saying “if you can come, see if you can bring (Tom) Tancredo and (Ron) Paul with you.” (Sheesh, I forgot Duncan Hunter, Sam Brownback, and John McCain.) But Wayne noted that he liked Rep. Paul and, while stopping short of an outright endorsement, stated that Paul was probably the one in the race most well-read on the issues, even including Newt Gingrich if he were to enter the fray.
We also had a number of the local GOP politicians in attendance who weren’t running this year, including State Senator Lowell Stoltzfus, Delegates Page Elmore and Addie Eckardt, Wicomico County Council representatives Gail Bartkovich and Joe Holloway, Sheriff Mike Lewis, and Orphans’ Court Judge Bill Smith.
Overall we were pleased with the attendance albeit maybe a little disappointed by the silent auction take. Since this event is a main fundraiser of ours, that’s the bread and butter for us. However next week’s Straw Poll will hopefully make up all of the difference and more.
And it didn’t rain for once!
You know, I wrote this and forgot one other thing I wanted to mention. I finally got to meet the blogger Karen, who writes out of Delmar. She has a nice website that I encourage you to read so I wanted to make sure I gave her a shout. Karen wasn’t there to write about the goings-on but to have a nice time, which I’m sure she, hubby, and kids did!
My family and I had a great time! It was very nice meeting you too. Oh…and thanks for the plug…LOL.
Nice Post Michael. For the first time in months, I actually read the entire thing. It was great to see you there out and about, as always.
Great coverage of the crab feast, Michael. Your pictures tell it all. Glad you got to meet Karen and put a plug in for her site. Tom (Karen’s dad)
Since you brought it up Tom…
This was the first time I’d actually helped out a bit with the event, and it’s pretty amazing the work that goes into it. I had the easy job walking around and snapping pictures to go with my text and post. Depending on when Chris puts them up, in the next few days I’ll have other pictures of the event that I didn’t use for monoblogue (large format) on the club’s website.