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In het dagblad USA TODAY van 14 november 2007
MILFORD, Ohio — Bill Knepp's town crier idea started out as a lark. He needed a way to rouse the Jaycees during a convention in 1955, so he rented the uniform and strode through the halls, swinging a hand bell and shouting, "Hear ye, hear ye!"
The gimmick worked. The people gathered.
Knepp played the crier a few more times at work conventions, never imagining that someday this would be a full-time gig.
"It went by the wayside until I retired," Knepp, 77, said. "But it just kept bugging me that I should do this."
Today, Knepp is the official crier for Clermont County, the city of Milford and Miami Township in southwest Ohio. In three years, he's cried at more than 100 parades, schools and parties. He receives no pay, but he does request donations for a performing arts scholarship fund.
This week, he is hosting a gathering of town criers from the USA and Canada celebrating the 10th anniversary of the American Guild of Town Criers.
Starting today and continuing through Friday, criers from all over will meet and bellow their lungs out, competing for the top crier prize. Knepp is ecstatic.
Town criers dress in traditional garb and gather at competitions to call attention to their fading form of communication, said John Karsten, president of the American Guild of Town Criers.
"To be part of the guild, you can't just be a crazy nut standing on the corner with a big mouth," said Karsten, the official town crier of Holland, Mich., since 1979. "You have to be a legal, certified town crier" appointed by government officials.
The guild had seven members when it formed in 1997. Today it has grown to more than 30. Members pay $10 a year in dues and include men and women, Karsten said.
Fred Taylor — known as Squire Frederick when he cries — is one of the newer criers, getting the OK from the mayor's office in Annapolis, Md., in 2006. The 66-year-old widower previously worked for the Department of Defense. Now in retirement, he spends his free time announcing just-married couples and welcoming legislators back to session. "It just kind of puts a smile on people's faces," he said.
About 20 criers from towns stretching from California to Ontario have signed up for the gathering in Milford. Knepp has planned a schedule of banquets and parades sandwiching the big competition, where participants will deliver their cries about their hometowns. According to guild rules, those cries must be between 100 and 125 words and submitted to the judges in advance. The winner gets $100.
As host, Knepp can't participate in the competition, but he'll be there, dressed in his buckled shoes, gripping his golden bell. This costume isn't a rental — he owns the Colonial-era outfit now. He wears it enough. "When I put that outfit on," he said, "I become the town crier." |
