What you missed at Prince Edward County’s Olympic Torch Relay celebration December 15, 2009

What a party!

From where I stood on the stage in my role as co-host with Jeanette Arsenault, it was a sea of about 5000 people wearing red. Red gloves, red toques, red jackets… stretching from the magnificant stage brought to the Prince Edward fairgrounds by the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC), all the way to the top row of the grandstands where the audience usually watches horse races. Rarely do we get a crowd like that in Picton.

The performers made me proud: our local performers, who made me proud to be a County girl, and the corporate sponsor (Coke and RBC) performers, who made me proud to be Canadian. I was proud to be a Loyalist College graduate because of the outstanding job done by the college team in streaming the event live to the Web at www.loyalisttv.com, where you can still watch event highlights. I was proud to be a York University theatre grad, because one of the corporate performers was Noah Cappe, my classmate from York, who did a great job of revving up the crowd!

Local sports enthusiast, Joey Lavender, did us all proud as the torch bearer on the final leg into the fair grounds. There was more than a tear or two shed at that moment. Our elected officials did us proud, too (MP Daryl Kramp: I saw you dancing!)

I will say the “colour party”, highlighting the cultures of County origins, was not meant to exclude other cultures who are now part of our community (Greeks! Jamaicans! I’m talking to you!) Rather, the colour party was meant to pay tribute to those cultures who originally settled the County, most of them as United Empire Loyalists. (Thank you, reporter Jason Parks, for bringing that concern to my attention.)

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me and our community. All those invisible organizers did such a great job, VANOC told us Picton was the best organized community of the hundreds they’ve visited so far! (Glad they liked the script – took us days and days and days!)

Media was really supportive of the event. Besides two Loyalist College tv crews, CTV was there (apparently the cameraman got kicked off the stage!) All the local papers and radio stations were there. A special thanks to my colleagues at Rock 107, CJBQ and Mix 97 for supporting us.

One of the best things of all could be that the event showed the fairgrounds would be an awesome spot for huge future concerts!