Rain, fog doesn’t stop pageant

By Laura Johnson | Dadeville Record

Published Wednesday, December 16, 2009

And to all a good night: Volunteer Leroy Sellers portrays Santa Claus as part of the What Christmas Means pageant Friday night. Carolers entertain passers-by as part of the Living Christmas Tree scene Friday night. The pageant was cancelled Saturday due to heavy rain, but resumed Sunday.

The weather was rainy, cold and foggy, but it didn’t stop the What Christmas Means pageant in Dadeville last weekend.

Twenty-four backdrops lit and decorated to create images of traditional and religious Christmas scenes wrapped around the streets that surround around Tiger Stadium for the pageant. As many as 150 volunteer actors helped fill scenes at the pageant to provide a life-like effect for the event.

Crowds came out to see the display despite the cold temperatures Friday night, which was the busiest show of the three-day event.

“Our first night is always our best night,” said Laeman Butcher, the event’s founder. “Everybody seemed excited about it.”

Saturday night did not go as well. Heavy rains and strong winds prompted Butcher and his daughter, Karen White, who also helps organize the annual pageant, to call it off for the night.

“It was raining two or three inches. We can’t put people in the scenes in those conditions,” Butcher said.

The next day they found that eight of the 24 scenes had blown over, but volunteers rallied to put them back in place that day. It took 15 volunteers a total of 105 work hours to complete the task.

“We got it back in shape for that night,” Butcher said. “Everybody pitched in and did what they had to do to get it back.”

A light mist fell Sunday night, but the pageant went on as planned, and the weather actually created a more pleasant atmosphere for the event, according to White.

“We thought the fog was going to be a problem, but it gave an aura to the scenes that made them look more authentic,” White said.

However, not many people were there to see it. That’s because many of the volunteers and community members apparently thought the show was called off for a second night.

“We muddled through,” White said. “A lot of our volunteers didn’t show up, not because they didn’t want to, but they just must have thought there was inclement weather and that we weren’t going to have it.”

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