Mini Majestic Miss Kerr Lake Sterling Adams, left, and Tiny Miss Kerr Lake Lawson Adams help bring youth to the Embassy Square construction ceremony Friday.
Much of the talk at the Embassy Square construction celebration Friday was about children, and more than a few children were in the crowd of several hundred people to hear the message of Henderson’s future.
“This community is your community,” Embassy foundation Chairman Sam Watkins told the children. “I’d like to challenge you to become future leaders in this community. … With faith and determination and trust and teamwork and perseverance, you can accomplish anything. We need you to become leaders … and move the community forward as you grow older.”
Some of those potential future leaders made sure all in attendance got programs.
Sterling Adams finds the flowers more
interesting than the speakers.
And the full assortment of 2005 Little Miss Kerr Lake winners helped hand out red, pink, blue, green, yellow and white balloons to as many people as they could. One of the youngest beauty queens toddled up to county Commissioner Danny Wright and gave him a pink balloon.
Three of the Little Miss Kerr Lake winners prepare
for the ceremony while construction workers do their
part in the background.
During the ceremony, the young beauties took up posts around the stage alongside sketches of Embassy Square buildings, and they drew the attention of featured guest Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who returned to the lectern after her speech to gather the girls around her onstage.
Sen. Elizabeth Dole chats with the 2005 Little Miss Kerr Lake winners during a pause in the Embassy celebration. “They are beautiful,” she said. “Here’s the future.”
“It was mentioned earlier that all of this is for our children, for the future,” Dole said. “I am so impressed with these beautiful young girls.”
A Northern Vance quartet leads Sen. Elizabeth Dole, Commissioner Tommy Hester, Sam Watkins and Minerva McGregor, along with a crowd of hundreds, in singing the national anthem.
Northern Vance High School’s Britany Venable, Mary Twisdale, Modjeska Thrower and Callie Murphy did their part by singing the national anthem.
Meanwhile, to the Chestnut Street side of the ceremony, a group of dozens of day campers from the Henderson Family YMCA made up the biggest, most colorfully dressed group on a gray day.
The YMCA crowd moves into position Friday.
The YMCA group took advantage of spring break from school to go downtown and see the senator. They impressed the YMCA’s director, Woody Caudle, with their good behavior through an hour of sitting still, and they were rewarded with the chance to release helium balloons at the end.
But Caudle said the YMCA brought the schoolchildren to the ceremony for more than the rare chance to see a senator or to play with balloons. He wanted them to see how Henderson is striving for greatness. “Embassy Square is for them.”