By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Red Rally is set for Sunday.
The annual pep rally for the Kansas City Chiefs, officially welcoming the team back to St. Joseph for Training Camp, will be held Sunday afternoon at Civic Center Park.
St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce spokesperson, Kristi Bailey, says St. Joseph businesses benefit greatly from the annual training camp that attracts Chiefs fans from all over.
“The gas stations, the restaurants, the businesses close to Missouri Western, they benefit. We do have some visitors that come from out of state that stay in hotels, that make a little vacation out of training camp,” Bailey tells KFEQmmunity. “So, we do have some businesses that do benefit from training camp as well.”
Bailey says St. Joseph also benefits greatly from the notoriety it receives from national reports on the Chiefs from training camp on the Missouri Western State University campus.
Bailey says the Red Rally begins at noon at Civic Center Park, located at City Hall, and runs through four o’clock with a festive atmosphere celebrating the return of Chiefs.
“So, this is a way that a lot of our community partners work together to show the Chiefs just how excited we are to have them come back year after year,” Bailey says.
A DJ will begin the “pre-rally” at noon. Country artist, Blane Howard, performs at 1:30pm. The voice of the Chiefs, Mitch Holthus, and KC Wolf kick off the official rally with the return of Tech N9ne at 3pm.
There will be games for the children and food vendors. Residents are encouraged to begin lawn chairs.
Bailey says the event is the city’s way of showing appreciation to the Chiefs.
“We put out our banners and we put out our yard signs,” Bailey says. “But having this big community event really shows them that the community is behind them and we want to thank them for coming,”
Bailey says the city prides itself on being the home of Chiefs Training Camp.
“So, it’s important for us to show the Chiefs organization just how much St. Joseph loves the Chiefs.”
The city reminds residents two streets bordering Civic Center Park will be closed during Red Rally. Francis Street will be closed from just east of 10th Street to 12th Street, and North 12th Street will be closed from Francis to Jules from 7pm on Saturday to 9am on Monday.
St. Joseph Public works department will be placing no parking signs along the streets on Thursday afternoon to prepare for the closure. Drivers still will be able to access the parking lot of the Wesley Senior Towers apartment building during the street closure.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ