Valdosta, GA – On June 7, 2012, Alecia, Lee and I left with Alecia’s parents, Louie and Hazel Hansard, for Valdosta to attend the Second-Annual Southeastern Southern Gospel Music Conference at the Performing Arts Center. We ate at “Buckner’s” in Jackson for lunch. We arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn that evening.
After we arrived, we saw our dear friend, Ray Norton, who invited us to sing for his program last year (see that post). We all ate with him at the “Cracker Barrel”, and then Ray took us to see the venue and his house.
We arrived at the venue on Friday morning for registration and product table set-up. The artist tables were in the main entrance lobby. Our table was next to “The Spiritual Voices” from Dahlonega.
We sang on the Friday evening concert with Ann Downing, Ricky Atkinson and Logan Smith. On Saturday morning, Alecia and her mother attended the women’s conference with Ann Downing. That evening, we met several new friends. We also saw Ken Williams, whom we met at this conference last year. The “Fan Awards” were presented on Saturday at 6:00pm. We were asked to present the award for “Trio of the Year”. “The Paul Family” presented the “Duet of the Year” award. We had finished in the top five poll along with Jeff and Sherry Easter, “Wilburn and Wilburn”, Aaron and Amanda Crabb, and “ReignSong”. When we were announced as the winners, we were overwhelmed with emotion. (See our acceptance video on our website). It was a wonderful experience for us!
We left on Sunday morning. We decided to avoid I-75 construction, so we drove up US 41 and saw beautiful farms and orchards. We ate lunch at “Buckner’s” again, where we saw Josh Phillips, who was at the SESGMC, and Mark Fuller. They were going to see “The Hoppers” that evening at a near-by church.
Alecia and I thank everyone that voted for us, and for your prayers for our ministry.
