Yellow Pages
About 700 protesters and Glenn Beck supporters lined College Way tonight before Beck’s appearance at McIntyre Hall.
Beck, who lived in Mount Vernon for part of his childhood, is receiving a key to the city tonight from Mayor Bud Norris.
Among the protesters was Bellingham resident Minnie Pollett, who drove to Mount Vernon with about a dozen others. She volunteers weekly at Burlington’s Lucille Umbarger Elementary School. She said she wanted to protest because she resents Beck’s presence here.
“I believe in our Democracy. I believe in tolerance and President Obama, and the positive power to make a difference — not this,” Pollett said.
The anti-Beck crowd outnumbered the pro-Beck group by about 2 to 1. A plane circled overhead towing a banner reading, “Change the locks.”
At 5:20 p.m., police arrested a man for disorderly conduct. Police cruisers periodically rolled up or down College Way, with officers telling protesters to stay on the sidewalk and off of the street.
Those against Beck passionately showed their disdain for the talk-show host, touting signs saying “Hate is not a Mount Vernon value,” and others far more crude, Lyman resident Mary Ellen Byerly said.
“There’s no reason for obscenity,” she said before she got in line to enter the hall. “Protest yes, obscenity no.”
The pro-Beck crowd’s enthusiasm was just as great. Many carried flags designed after those that waved during the American Revolution.
Chris Burton and his nephew, Seth Burton, 16, sat on the tailgate of a pickup truck and watched the spectacle from afar.
“It makes me angry,” Seth Burton said of the demonstrators. “Glenn Beck is a positive thing in this town because he fights for my rights as an American citizen. Glenn Beck is a hometown hero to me.”
