About 1,500 people were shoehorned into the Lamar High School football stadium, waiting to see the final event of the centennial celebration of the birth of the city's most famous native son, President Harry S Truman.
The Truman Pageant was a community-wide effort. An incredibly realistic depiction of the way downtown Lamar looked in 1884 had been created by the Lamar Art League. Nearly every local celebrity in the city was playing a part in the production. The mayor was played by Mayor Gerald Gilkey, the school leaders by Superintendent Glenn Williams and School Board President Ronnie Means. My boss, Lamar Democrat Publisher Doug Davis, was playing the role of the first editor of the Democrat, Lee Chiswell. Dozens of Lamar citizens played roles in the creation of the Truman Pageant. The part of Truman's father, John Truman, a mule trader, was played by the son of the Lamar mule trader whose mules were part of President Truman's inaugural parade in 1949.
And all of them were completely soaked by the end of the production, except for two.
