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Motor coach rally has wet end
By JOY DAVIS-PLATT, Times Staff Writer
BROOKSVILLE -- As cold, drizzling rain fell on U.S. 41 Sunday morning, a constant string of headlights headed away from Hernando County Airport, marking the end of the annual Family Motor Coach Association rally. All week, about 4,000 people have lived in what amounts to a small city consisting of row upon row of motor homes just south of Brooksville. Since Wednesday, motor coach enthusiasts have spent their days perusing new display coaches and more than 200 vendor booths, as well as attending seminars on motor coach upkeep. "Things have gone very smoothly this year," said Mary Lawler, the association's national vice president over the Southeast area. "Except for a little bit of bad weather, it's gone without a hitch." This year's event, which turned out to be larger than last year's, drew more than 7,000 people and some 2,000 motor coaches, Lawler said. It marked the sixth year the event has come to Hernando County. Each year, the Family Motor Coach Association spends $200,000 on the event. "This is a very good spot for an event like this," said Lawler, who has lived on the grounds with her husband in their motor home since 1997. "(The ground) got a little soupy with the rain, but that's to be expected." In July, Lawler will step down from the office she has held for four years when a new vice president is elected. Until then, as always, she will start on next year's rally. "We should be in good shape by the time I leave," she said. "I'll have a good handle on the contractors, and that's a big part of it." It will fall to the new vice president to coordinate the more than 700 volunteers it takes to prepare and run the rally. "There is an awful lot of work involved in it," said Doug Anderson, senior vice president of the Southeast area. "We wind up doing a little bit of everything -- just pitching in where we can." The theme of this year's rally was America the Beautiful, a sentiment that resonated with the motor coach enthusiasts, Lawler said. Many participants wore black ribbons on their name tags in honor of the seven astronauts who died when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart over the western United States. "I think losing the Columbia brought out a lot more patriotism in all of us," she said. "This whole place was covered in red, white and blue."
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