Last night, 20 community members gathered in the El Dorado Civic Center to discuss the future and viability of the Celebration of Freedom – a ten-year-old community event designed “to honor veterans and renew our patriotism,” said Celebration leader Bill Mason.

“To a degree, I think we’ve been very successful in doing some of those kinds of things,” he said. “For some of us who were not able to serve, this is a love kind of effort.”

The discussion came at the request of the event’s regular coordinators, who are looking to discern what direction Celebration of Freedom needs to take, or in fact, whether it ought to continue at all. Hosted by Mason, a Kansas Representative who retired in early 2005, and moderated by Becky Wolfe, executive director of Leadership Butler and “professional volunteer,” the panel was asked three questions for the sake of discussion:
“What is the impact of Celebration of Freedom in the community and beyond?”
“What are the challenges?”
“Where do we go from here?”

The 20 attendees were divided into four breakout groups to get a snapshot of each mini-panel’s top three answers to each question. The groups were then asked to bring their discussion into the larger group.

Over the last decade, Mason said, Celebration of Freedom has taught young people about patriotism by bringing veterans into local schools to talk about their service. Also, the event has pioneered the Veteran of the Year award and built “two of the finest memorials, I think, in this part of the country,” he said.

At last year’s event, the committee was responsible for having a strip of U.S. 54 Highway from the Missouri state line to Kingman dedicated as Veterans’ Memorial Highway.

Even so, Mason said Celebration attendance was off last year and the people currently organizing the event aren’t getting any younger. He wondered if the community was already offering enough events in the way of patriotism with the prevalence of the American Legion Riders, the Kansas Veteran’s Reunion and other events which honor members of the Armed Forces.

In regard to the first question – “What is the impact of Celebration of Freedom?” – the groups offered the following insights.

“We’ve gotten ... the community involved in recognizing the veterans,” said Neil Buckman. “That mission has been pretty effective.”

“The economic impact from not only people who come to that event, but the Veterans’
Memorial on the courthouse lawn,” said Jean Plummer.

Plummer also cited the national recognition received through the Celebration of Freedom’s efforts.

“Other communities look to us for leadership for these programs,” said Lewie Cooper. “They wonder how we do it.”

“We think that it’s vitally important that during that week, that the veterans communicate with the young people of the community with regard to why they have the freedoms they have,” said Jerry Demo.  “One of the best things to happen to this community is that memorial on the courthouse lawn. It has brought tons  of people into this community. It’ll last forever.”

For more on this meeting, see tomorrow’s Times.