Besides celebrating Christ's resurrection Sunday, about 400 Good Sam Club members from throughout Arkansas finished celebrating their Samaritan spirit at the Four States Fairgrounds.
This group of recreational vehicle owners completed a week-long stay at the fairgrounds, where they took part in a statewide fellowship rally of other club members. The annual rally included activities such as line dancing, horseshoe tossing, egg tossing and domino playing,
For at least 15 years, some 400 to 440 club members representing several of Arkansas' 29 Good Sam Club chapters have held their annual rally at the fairgrounds.
"This year, Mayor Ruth Penney-Bell has proven to be a gracious hostess for our rally," said Bill Nery, who along with his wife, Dee, serve as the club's Arkansas state directors. "Arkansas alone has about 15,000 club members of the total 1.5 million Good Sam Club members living in both the U.S. and Canada."
During their final day at the fairgrounds, club members, who are usually age 50 and up, held a memorial for 12 fellow club members who have died during the last year-a memorial that included both a candlelight and bell-ringing ceremony.
"We are all like family, we are all here for each other and we all have a good time here every year," Nery said.
His wife, Dee, agreed.
"My hope is that as the years continue to go by, there will be less and less of us who pass on," she said.
Besides holding their annual rallies each April at the fairgrounds, Nery said about 1,000 club members in Arkansas give at least 168,000 hours of volunteer service to charities throughout the state.
"These same club members also give about 62,000 volunteer hours a year to working in some of Arkansas' state parks, and we look forward to coming back here this time next year," Nery said.