AS TEA PARTY PROTESTS SWEEP FROM COAST TO COAST, A COLLEGE TOWN IN MIDDLE TENNESSEE IS NOT EXCLUDED.
Cookeville, Tenn., home to Tennessee Tech University, plays host to one of the approx. 2,000 events nationwide.
Story by Jordan M. Iwanyszyn
The Putnam County Republican Party lead the way to plan and host the tea party here in the "Hub City" of Tennessee's Upper Cumberland region. Like virtually all of the protests across America, it took a conservative organization to get the ball rolling on the patriotic protests, despite the eager presence of independents and even fiscally-conservative Democrats at many rallies.
The Cookeville event began on schedule at 4 PM with an invocation. Yours truly was the Master of Ceremonies through the hour of events. Delnora Acuff beautifully sang our nation's anthem. She also provided some pre-rally acapella music.
The first speaker was Major General Dave Evans. He is the 2010 Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress in the Sixth District of Tennessee, where he will oppose Rep. Bart Gordon, a supporter of President Obama's power-grabbing policies. Evans introduced himself to the crowd, estimated by a sheriff's deputy to be about 600, and drove the point home on how dangerous Obama's economic policies are. He fired up the crowd, who frequently broke into applause and shouts.
Speaking second was Cookeville businessman Jonathan Williams. His point was similar to all of the four speakers in talking about the risks to our Republic as we tread down the road of socialism. He mentioned that this is not about Republicans, or independents, or Democrats. It's not about black or white. These protests are about Americans taking their country back. Williams is the owner of Veterans Barber Shop in Cookeville.
The third speaker was Ronda Rader, the Republican State Executive Committeewoman for the Tennessee 15th State Senatorial District. She mentioned about her son entering active military duty, and how the current government in Washington is putting our military in jeopardy with its foreign policies and willingness to cut the defense budget.
Rader was followed by the final speaker of the day, retired Army Colonel Ron Cyrus. He talked about similar issues that Evans and Williams mentioned in the radical tax-and-spend policies of today's elected officials in Washington.
Even though an estimate has the attendance at 600, several estimated the attendance as high as nearly 1,000. Local attorney Howie Acuff even calculated that, per-capita, Cookeville had the highest turnout of any of the protests across the country, higher than even Lansing, Mich., Atlanta and San Antonio.
The Putnam County Republican Party first gathered a committee to organize the event in March at the monthly general meeting. As CNBC's Rick Santelli sparked the first wave of tea parties nearly two months ago, some attending that March general meeting suggested Cookeville needed a tea party of its own. Chairman Don Caldwell placed yours truly as the committee chair, and with the strong assistance of several individuals, including Caldwell and his wife Glenda, Terry Herrin, Terri Sadler, and others far too numerous to mention, the Putnam County event was a fantastic success.
Plans are in the works for another event in the summer. Stay tuned!
Following in this post, and the next four, are photos from the event:
ALL PHOTOS ARE COURTESY OF JORDAN M. IWANYSZYN
Preparations go final at the Putnam County Republican headquarters on Broad Street, just off the square.
Yours truly with some modern day patriots whose costumes pay homage to the colonial patriots who started it all.
The scene on the square about an hour out from the event.
I wonder if this is what his supporters were thinking when they mindlessly chanted "yes we can". For some probably not, but for others, I still wonder.
