Political hopefuls from across the state stepped onto a tree stump Saturday morning in Sherwood.
From the freshly cut piece of wood in Delmont Park, candidates running for office in November broadcast their platforms to about 150 people who greeted them with wallops and cheers.
Incumbents touted their accomplishments from previous terms. Challengers sought to show that they are right for the job.
Some people listened.
Others ate cookies and drank lemonade, just like the town's founders did in 1948 when they held a political rally in the same spot to elect Sherwood's first city representatives.
More than 66 years later, Sherwood resident Darrell Brown revived the tradition. Saturday's old-fashioned political rally, called Stand on the Stump, paid homage to the town's founding.
"On a Monday evening, three months after the town was incorporated, our founding fathers got together and held a political rally," said Brown, who founded the five-member Sherwood History and Heritage Committee last year. "They had a town, but no government."
Brown said he had learned about the 1948 rally after retrieving a book about Sherwood's history from a dusty closet in the mayor's office. He read the book's single paragraph detailing the event, and brushed it aside.
Some time later, while watching the political drama The West Wing with his wife, Brown had the idea to re-create Sherwood's first political rally.
"They were showing flashback scenes to when the president was first running, and I thought, 'Wouldn't that be something great for us to do here in Sherwood?'"
Many of those who attended Saturday's rally in the city of 30,000 people had neighbors or friends running for local offices.
Dressed in athletic clothes and wearing sunglasses, Mary Cobb, 53, strategically placed a lawn chair in the shade and listened to the speeches.
"My husband is the city attorney, and so we came to support the candidates," she said. "Might as well get comfortable."
While Brown wanted to replicate the original rally as much as possible, some details were out of his control.
Candidates readily gave out lawn signs, paper fans, custom-made T-shirts, even iPhone 5 cases emblazoned with their names and their campaign slogans.
A state-of-the-art speaker system and microphone, which some candidates declined to use, also demonstrated the irrevocable passage of time.
In all, more than 20 candidates spoke from three different parties -- Democrat, Republican and Libertarian -- ranging from the local level up to statewide office.
Despite warnings about a strict four-minute speech limit, none of the candidates were cut short.
During his morning walk Saturday, Marty Hyde, 59, heard the commotion in the park and decided to check out the event.
After some time perusing the different tables, he left the park with a handful of pamphlets about different candidates.
"I'm getting all the propaganda," he said. "I want to see something that affects me right here on this street."
Metro on 09/07/2014