Hip Hooray - What a Day!
Let me just say that Thanks will never be enough. Last Saturday’s first ever Community Pep Rally was more than we could have ever hoped for! For years we had tossed around the idea of a Pep Rally for all of the schools in White House and this year thanks to a good hard push from Karl Hawes we dove in head first and although it was a lot of work on a very hot day it was AMAZING!

When you grow up in a town practically your whole life you take for granted what a great place it is to live, but I was reminded last week as every school came together to celebrate one of White House’s greatest passions - football.

Let me go ahead and apologize right now because whenever you start listing people to thank you always manage to leave someone out. But I have to try to at least recognize a few of the outstanding groups of people who helped make this better than I could have ever imagined. First, we couldn’t have even started without the support of our sponsors, Papa John’s and Summit Prep jumped right on board as presenting sponsors and soon several others followed. Secondly, I work with an amazing group of people at the Connection and Think Ink that I often take for granted, but let me tell you they sure do come through when you need them and they were more than I could have hoped for at the Pep Rally and the weeks leading up to the event.

We were able to offer free activities to the kids in the form of fun inflatables thanks to the generosity of All About Fun and Lee’s Rentals. And the nicest group of people that you could ever hope to meet, the folks at Long Hollow Baptist Church White House Campus stepped up as volunteers for the entire event! We were able to hand off a lot of responsibility to them and they were outstanding and happy to help. Another group I dare not leave out is the White House Quarterback club who helped set up competitions and hand out t-shirts and greet folks as they came into the stadium. Donnie Eden and Frank Tollett volunteered their time and energy to help emcee the event.

The schools provided more than we could ask for with enthusiastic students and athletes. The cheerleaders of all schools came together to help us promote the event with game day signs all over town. And the bands, let me say that White House Director Eric Scott and Heritage Director J.R. Baker really helped pull things together, playing and marching together, keeping the crowd involved and helping with the scheduling and then clean up at the end of the night.

The community of White House deserves a huge round of applause for the support they showed all of our schools. Despite very hot weather, especially since we have been so spoiled lately with below average temps, we had over 1500 people in attendance. WOW is all I can say to that and I can not wait until next year.

Which brings me to the last point I’ll cover today - next year - yes we are already planning. Even though we were beat and I mean beat we were talking about how to make it even better for everyone next year as we broke down tents and cleaned up the stadium.

We think we should start it later to avoid the sweltering heat, just like a football game with stadium lights and all around 7:30. People have suggested we include the middle schools and try to get our Jr. Pro athletes more involved. Maybe add some more events for the students, and definitely add more events for the faculty which seemed to be the highlight of the night.

I’d love to hear from you in the next weeks to know what you would like to see next year and let me know what you think we should do differently. Send us your comments to connection@bargainbrowser.com
Again, thank you will never be enough. And please remember the only way we are able to bring exciting events like the Community Pep Rally to White House is through the support of local businesses who may deserve the biggest round of applause in they support our town in many ways!