Video of the first month in USA

Kingman Mayor Monica Gates (r) and Christy Turley enthusiastically welcomed the international team of runners to their historic town.

For some of us staying at the historic Brunswick Hotel our first two meetings for the day were just a short walk away. Two blocks from our wonderful accommodations in Kingman was the City Hall where we had the Mayor, Monica Gates, and Vice-Mayor, Tom Spear, kindly welcoming us to Kingman. Tom is also the General Manager of the Best Western Motel that some of our members stayed in the night before in Kingman also.

We met with Monica, Tom, Ray Lyons, a councilman, and Christy Turley who works for the City Hall and helped arrange this meeting, in the shade on the beautiful lawn of the City Complex buildings. The temperature was rising quickly out here and the shade was the only place that we could comfortably share with these wonderful people our adventures and goals in running for harmony. We had all eleven members of our team there representing eight different countries each sharing our own experiences and international flavor in this event. We are grateful to all the Kingman representatives there who shared in our thoughts about world harmony starting in the heart and lives of each individual. Jeff, from the local newspaper, The Daily Miner, was also present to cover the story and kindly share our visit to Kingman with the rest of the city.

Just a few more blocks up the street was the oldest school in Kingman built in 1926 called the Palo Christi Elementary School. We were greeted there by hundreds of children and teachers.

Emily Hall, one of the counselors, was very kind and welcoming as she also helped to arrange this wonderful meeting with the enthusiastic children.

All the class presidents have their moment with the flame.

Again our meeting was mostly in the shade as every minute the burning desert sun seemed to heat up the air by one degree.

The children asked many interesting questions and had fun as we sang our song with them and took photos with them.

One by one, each child made a personal wish for harmony in their lives.

It was the first school we have visited in almost a week and it was refreshing to share our feeling on harmony with so many young people.

Later in the day we ran in to Nevada, crossing over the huge and powerful Hoover Dam into Boulder City. This tremendous structure which was built from 1931 to 1935 supplies electricity to about five surrounding states. It was a very impressive experience to run over and out of with steep and winding hills into a very hot windy desert air, like running into a blow dryer while carrying a Torch.

Entering the city of Kingman, we made our way to the M.P. King elementary school. Mayor Ferraro was there to greet us along with hundreds of children and teachers. They had many signs, handmade flags, posters and other creative artwork that they had been working on all week for us.

Principal Mary Scialabba had her students prepare colorful placards welcoming all the runners .

Mary Scialaba, the vice-Principal, did much research on our website to let the children know the various countries that our runners come from.

The children then created flags of the countries and even wrote down words in some of the languages of our runners.

It was truly a creative and very thoughtful way of welcoming us and sharing in the global feeling of harmony.

Some of the runners stayed the night in Boulder City at the ‘El Rancho Boulder Motel’ due to the kindness of Rick and Jamie Atkinson. It was a very pleasant stay with a very big and clean pool as well. Mary, the front desk manager, was also quite pleasant and understanding of what we were doing to promote harmony from person to person.

The rest of the team stayed at the Haciendo Hotel nearer to the Hoover Dam on Lake Mead. Again, we are ever so grateful to the management for such wonderful accommodations and great service.

Arpan and Team Harmony

---

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

< USA 1 June

USA 3 June >