Our Cheers will Ring Out!

Since Tom and I are the co-chairs of the BYU Alumni chapter here in Boise, we had a very busy week preparing for the BYU vs. BSU football game on September 20. We had to host the BYU Football team Fireside on Wednesday night, September 19 and then put on a Tailgate party on Thursday before the game. We were originally anticipating a Saturday night game, so when ESPN announced that the game would be on Thursday evening, we were a little disappointed and wondered how we could pull off a successful Tailgate party before the 7 pm Kick-off. Thanks to our wonderful board and event chairmen, all went well. The Football team Fireside on Wednesday night was amazing. We held the Fireside at the Meridian East Stake center. Jim Edwards (a former Cougar football player) is in the stake presidency of that stake and he conducted the meeting. The AV guys in that stake were awesome and were able to get the satellite feed to 10 other stake centers throughout the valley, including Kuna, Mountain Home, Weiser, Payette, Ontario, etc. We filled the Meridian East stake center with 1700 people and had each of the others stakes count the people in attendance. All totaled 3204 people were able to view the Fireside. It was a great meeting. The two Matthews brothers, Marcus and Mitch, spoke first and gave great talks. Both are returned missionaries and spoke from their heart with their scriptures. A group of Polynesians sang "Nearer my God to Thee" acapella, then Bronco spoke. He also spoke from the heart, very humbly and told the purpose of the football program at BYU. All the football players on the stand, then rose and sang "Armies of Helaman" and then President Samuelson spoke. It was a fantastic meeting. The biggest thrill for me was getting to lead the music. It was so fun to hear all those big male voices behind me on the stand singing "Hope of Israel" and "The Spirit of God" and to look out into that overflow crowd with all of us singing together. It was worth all the hard work coordinating the Fireside. I got to shake some of the football players hands, but didn't get to meet Bronco. Maybe next time. I talked to many of the team's families and they were all so appreciative and said that the fireside was very well organized. Thursday was a very busy day. We arrived at the BSU student stake center (it was about a mile from Bronco stadium and was the closest location we could get) at 2 pm and had to get everything set up by 4 pm when the Tailgate started.

We had Costa Vida cater the meal, we had an inflatable slide and bounce house, face painting,

BYU mint brownies, raffle ticket give-a ways, a visit from Cosmo and the BYU cheerleaders,

and bookstore merchandise. Everything but the score of the football game turned out really great. We had around 400 people come to the tailgate party and we made about $1400 for BYU replenishment grants, so we felt really good about our efforts. We have some great people on our board that were very helpful and we couldn't have done it without them. Devin and I went to the game and poor Tom had to stay and clean up, but I don't think he felt too bad missing out on that pathetic game where BYU lost 7-6. Oh well, there's always next year!