Masonic Idol a huge success!



Well, my super Saturday is over and boy am I tired. I got up yesterday morning at 5:00am to put on our pancake and sausage breakfast. It was a modest success in that we made money, but not really that much. We made $224 on the pancake breakfast once the expenses were deducted. That's better than nothing, but it was a lot of work. I don't know the magic formula for these food fundraisers. I see some of them make over a $1,000 and more end up like ours went this time.

However, in the evening, we put on our first ever Masonic Idol event. A mild spoof on American Idol using DeMolay and Rainbow Girls to perform. It was a great success considering it was our first one ever and we hadn't even done a rehearsal for it. I will have a lot more to say about it in a future blog entry but I only have a moment now. Terry, Alex, and I are about to get in the car and drive down to see my Mom for Mothers day.

I did want to relate this one amazing anecdote though. To make sure we had some good entertainment value for the event I had arranged to have several special guest performers. Drew Maestus of Wentzville Holt High School was kind enough to perform. What made it even more special is that his sister, Abby, came with him to perform an acapela duet. It was absolutely amazing and set the right tone for the evening. Next, my daughter Lauren played a Danny Elfman piece from the movie The Corpse Bride on the piano.

While I encouraged everyone to invite their friends and neighbors it seems like I was the only one who had neighbors actually show up. Our good friends Diane and Lenny Brown showed up with their son Cole. They also brought their oldest daughter Jamie, who is attending college and Lindenwood. Jamie brought along her good friend from college Miki, a student from Japan. It was at this time that Lenny asked me if I could have another special guest performer. Of course I was thrilled to add some entertainment value to the evening and I asked him who he had in mind.

Well.......it just so turns out that Jamie's friend, Miki, was the winner of the Japanese version of American Idol in 2005!!! I kid you not. I host my first ever American Idol themed talent show and I get an actual Idol winner to perform!!!!

Her performance was simply amazing! I have the entire evening on video and I am now in the process of transferring it to MPEG. When I have time this week, I will post her performance, as well as some others, on Google Video and You Tube so you can see just how great the event turned out.

There is no question we will be doing it again next year. Everyone had an absolutely fantastic time!

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