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Abraham Lincoln Returns en masse to
Spencer County, Indiana |
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| Spencer County, Indiana's most famous son
returned to his old Stomping grounds in a big way in April. Fifty-two bearded men in top hats gathered in Santa Claus, Ind., for the annual convention of the Association a Lincoln Presenters (ALP). They were joined by 18 women who portray Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. The convention was quite a coup for tiny Spencer County, where Lincoln spent much of his youth. A record number of Abe presenters were in attendance, even though Spencer County is the smallest destination ever chosen by the ALP, which has had an annual convention for the past decade. Convention organizer and Lincoln presenter Dean Dorrell theorized that strong attendance might have been fueled by unfamiliarity. "Southern Indiana is the one place where Abraham Lincoln spent an extended period of time, and a lot of our members had not visited there," Dorrell said. "Everyone visits Springfield, Gettysburg, Washington and Hodgenville, but somehow or another, Southern Indiana gets left behind." Like Lincoln himself, who was known for his determination in the face of defeat, Spencer County would not give up. It had lost it's bid for the 2002 ALP convention by two votes to Vandalia. Ill.. the early capital of Illinois. Bid bolstered with letters, invitations. The next time around, it shored up its bid with letters from the area's state senator, U.S. congressman and U.S. Senator; assurances of personal assistant from Spencer County Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Vevah Harris; and a special invitation from the Spencer County Historical Society. The historical society invited the ALP members to its annual banquet, thus assuring the ALP members -all of whom pay their own way to the gathering -an ample free meal and the chance to rub elbows with the area's most knowledgeable historians. |
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| "Basically, they moved their banquet to the time we would be
there, and then they invited us to their banquet," said Dorrell. The meeting and convention market is a new one for Spencer County. Until recently, no facility in the county was large enough for a meeting of a few hundred people. Then, Santa's Lodge, a hotel in Santa Claus, added Celebration Lodge, a banquet room for groups of up to 350 and expanded its guest rooms to 119. Squeezing the area's many Lincoln-related sites into the itinerary and providing ample room for the many Mary Todd's hoop skirts were the biggest challenges in hosting the ALP, Harris and Dorrell agreed. The group visited the the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Lincoln State Park, the Lincoln Amphitheatre, Colonial William Jones State Historic Site, Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum and Lincoln Ferry Park. They assisted in the ribbon cutting for a Lincoln cabin where Abraham Lincoln slept at Buffalo Run, a farm where buffalo and ostrich are raised. The meeting itinerary managed to include all of the Lincoln history stops without making the attendees feel rushed, giving them "time to walk in the places Lincoln walked," said Dorrell. Going to the places, like Southern Indiana, where Lincoln lived and worked allows the presenters to add more depth and detail to their historical presentations Dean Dorrell is a Vice President in the ALP |
Seeing the lay of the land
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