ACTION NOW

In June 1966, forty-four summers ago, 1600 young people from 250universities, colleges and high schools converged on the Conference Center in the Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, CO.
They came together for a month-long conference sponsored by Moral Re-Armament.

Already the MRA sponsored Sing-Out '66 show had grown in less than a year from one cast of 130 members to 42 national, state and local troupes with 5,000 young people participating across America. And there was at least one sing-out cast on every continent in the world. With even more growth on the way!

Leaving Nashville from the steps of the War Memorial Auditorium downtown on June 3, 1966, there were over 120 members of Nashville's Sing-Out South heading west. With a escort of Metro motorcycle police officers known as "Newman's Raiders", the cast members joined the ACTION NOW conference led by our Hickory Valley trio of Eddie Lunn, Cabot Wade and Ted Overman. The cost of approximately $300 per person (plus transportation) was raised by cast members doing fund raisers such as selling doughnuts along with donations and scholarships from civic clubs and local businesses.

This was such an array of energy and musical skills that when the SOS cast made its first performance at Estes Park, it was named the winner of the talent contest held as a part of the opening session Reported THE NASHVILLE BANNER (June 17, 1966): "The enthusiam from the peppy Southeners spread like wildfire and brought an already happy audience to its feet, clapping and singing."

According to one of the brochures for the conference "beginning in July task forces will be launched throughout America and across the world. They will tour our national parks, summer resorts and military bases. They will respond to mounting invitations from leaders of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe to aid them in the Moral Re-Armament of their nations."

And it was not just to form three new national casts, now called "Up With People." There were also task forces formed of young men and women to work for PACE Magazine, including writing, photography, design and documentary film for an expanding international publication; Mackinac College in Upper Michigan, which was planned to open that September; and the Bear Creek Ranch training center in the foothills of the California Sierra Nevada.

And always there were the SOS members in the leadership. Quotes from stories in THE NASHVILLE BANNER included Jim Troutner: "The world is saturated with negativism and you can't change this with more negative thinking...We must update our attitudes." Harbin Williams: "This conference has given me vision...this is perhaps man's last chance to make and build a world that works." Added Wanda Ricks: "The spirit here is fantastic..This is the closest thing I have seen that could unite the world." And Marlene Echols: "The ideas of MRA are fascinating, challenging and a welcome addition to a tired world."

This is how the Conference Center in the Rocky Mountain National Park appears today. What happened at Estes Park 44 years ago, undertaken "for a demonstration of a nation on the move," is now but a memory to most. But for many of those who experienced the ACTION NOW conference, no doubt it left memories for a lifetime.

If you attended the ACTION NOW conference, please feel free to leave your comments and memories below. Thank you.