PRICEVILLE — More than 200 people attended a memorial event for the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Priceville, south of Decatur, on Sunday evening. The crowd viewed the Turning Point USA founder's memorial service, took part in group worship and heard from prominent conservative voices, including U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) and Gen-Z political commentator Brilyn Hollyhand.
Moore, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, urged those in the audience to follow Kirk's example of steadfast courage.
"Charlie Kirk stepped into this fight when he started Turning Point," Moore told the crowd. "It was about reaching young people, restoring the fabric of this nation, the love of this country and more importantly, his faith in Christ. So, as we go through this process, I want to encourage you to become bold. To step up and do what God's called you to do for such a time as this, for this nation."
The event took place at Fredricks Outdoor on Bethel Road. Its founder and owner, Tom Fredricks, briefly explained the early planning stages of the event to 1819 News.
" We started throwing some feelers up to see if somebody might be interested in getting on board with us. Barry Moore jumped up and said, I'll get behind that. And then Brilyn became a possibility," he stated. "We caught wind of what was fixing to happen in his world. And we thought, how cool would that be, so that domino fell into place. It all just started building. We decided, 'Hey, we got to do this, ' and boom. In five days, we put this thing together."
Hollyhand spoke to 1819 News about his personal relationship with Kirk and praised the lasting impact he has had on a younger generation.
"Charlie was a mentor who's now a martyr for this generation. He came on my podcast in the fourth grade," said Hollyhand. "You know, he was on Fox every other hour, but took the time to mentor the next generation. That's what Charlie did. That was his personality. His legacy is what we're seeing."
"We are seeing believers being able to have conversations with nonbelievers that they've never been able to have before. That's only because of Charlie. I absolutely know that my friend Charlie is smiling this evening."
" My message to my friend is we're going to grab the baton and keep running," he added.
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