By TOMIE V. PARKS
Special to the Taylor Press
They passed out posters and made a lot
of posts on Facebook.
"It was an invitation, plain and
simple, for people to come out and pray," said Casey Preusse of
Hutto, regarding Thursday night's prayer vigil for Sgt. Chris Kelley
at Fritz Park in Hutto.
She organized the event as a nod of
respect to the widow of Sgt. Kelley, for she also lives the life of a
law enforcement officer's wife. She's married to Texas State Trooper
David Preusse of Hutto and is all to familiar with the sacrifice and
hardships that work entails.
"I know it's hard, so I just
started asking people to come," Preusse said.
She wasn't sure what the results would
be, and she wasn't entirely sure what the vigil would entail when
plans were set in motion.
"Yeah, we didn't know if 10 people
would come or 10 hundred," said the Rev. Alan McGrath of Hutto
Discovery United Methodist Church, the vigil's host pastor who opened
and closed the program.
The pair's invitations started to
circulated late Wednesday night. By Thursday morning the high number
of RSVPs caused them to change venues from the parking lot at Hutto
City Hall to Hutto Fritz Park.
"We enlisted the help of the
Taylor and Round Rock Police Departments as well as the Williamson
County Sheriff's Officers to direct traffic," said Christina
Kane-Gipson, the public information officer for the City of Hutto, on
Thursday at lunchtime. "It looks like a lot of people are going
to be there, and we want to be prepared." (These law enforcement
agencies have been covering for the Hutto Police Department in all
other areas, as well, Kane-Gipson said. The local officers have been
relieve of duty in effort to give them the freedom to mourn.)
By the time 7 p.m. came along, all of
the parking lots near Fritz Park were full as well as the curbs of
all the streets in sight. Several hundred residents had come in
response to the invitation, alongside a host of community leaders,
which included representatives of the Hutto School District, Hutto
City Council, the Hutto Fire Department, Williamson County Regional
Response and the ROTC members from the school.
