North Platte Rail Fest 2009 is 2/3rds Over!!

If I had more energy, I would write a fabulous blog post touting the virtues of the North Platte Rail Fest. I'm going to be satisfied with linking the Rail Fest blog to this blog. The author has done a fantastic job live blogging from the site. He even made arrangements for Hamilton communications to supply a WiFi connection to make it possible. I encourage you to visit the blog to see what has been happening.

What I do have time and energy for is to write a great big THANK YOU for all of the amazing volunteers who have made this terrific event possible.

I don't generally mention names in my blog, and I'm not going to break my informal rule right now, but the three people responsible for Rail Fest were awarded the Cody Scout Award, which is the highest honor bestowed by the City of North Platte (Of course, named after Col. William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody). It is now appropriate to address each one of them as "Colonel." I haven't tried it yet, but they all deserve the respect that it symbolizes.  These three work literally 365 days a year to make this happen.

The rest of these thank-you's are not in any kind of order, they are just observations from what I saw the past few days. 

The kids from Sutherland Public Schools deserve all kinds of kudos. Not only did they volunteer in droves (yes, it is required for graduation, but these guys and gals were ENTHUSIASTIC about being there!), but they did everything that was asked of them. Even when their duties went from helping with kids games to manning barricades, they just accepted the change with no question and did a great job wherever they were. There are even two young men coming back tomorrow morning after they had so much fun today.

Rail Fest literally couldn't happen without the very willing and able volunteers from the North Platte RSVP program. The staff at RSVP does a terrific job in recruiting these "seasoned" workers, and the volunteers themselves can't be beat.

And then there are the two Boy Scouts who spent ALL DAY at Rail Fest, and will be back ALL DAY tomorrow making sure that all the recyclables and trash is taken care of. These guys did their job, and also helped out when and where they were asked.

The great guy who volunteered his time to suit up as Spike The Engineer also made a lot of kids happy today. OK, so the guy who had the three hour morning shift is really the Mister - he still deserves thanks.

Let's see, there's also the incredible people from the Union Pacific Railroad, who not only staffed all the equipment booths, but who volunteered to handle traffic control; the crew of the miniature train; the great people from Gateway Realty and Coldwell Banker Preferred Group who helped cover the bus tours and merchandise booth; and the organizers of all of the fantastic entertainment; and that great young man who is also the Sales Manager of the Quality Inn and Suites who has been there nearly every hour of every day so far.

OK, enough of this. I'm tired, and I'm sure you're tired of reading about all this local stuff.  See you all out at Rail Fest tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by. The coffee is always on.