Flower Show Article

At 11:00 a.m., fans were lined up around the tent waiting for the arrival of Ashley Parker Angel and Bourke Floyd (Dawson’s Creek). Although it had started out as a rainy, bleak day, when Ashley and Bourke got to the Wilmington Flower Market the sun was shining!

Thanks to a directionally challenged limo driver, they had some problems getting to the park, and arrived around 11:30 a.m. to a screaming crowd of anxious fans, some of who had been there since 6:00 a.m. Ashley was introduced by radio station WSTW 93.7, who sponsored the event. After speaking a few words of greeting, he and Bourke stepped in behind the table in the tent to greet their fans.

Ashley was happy to see us again and gave me one of his great hugs! I greeted him by saying “Hi Ashley Parker Angel from O-Town!” (I had just seen the Clone High episode the previous night) and he cracked up! I told him it sure sounded like he had a great time doing that and he said he loved it and wanted to do it again. Ashley told me that the writers and the producers of the show were great and even let him ad-lib and come up with some of his own lines.

They started letting the fans come up and Ashley and Bourke signed tons of pictures, posters, a stuffed animal, T-shirts, and a favorite of Bourke’s, a playboy bunny mirror. (Not an actual playboy bunny playmate, but the bunny symbol!) Bourke said they had to respect that! They also posed for pictures with fans and Ashley even said “Hi” to many other fans via cell phones! Both guys were totally pumped up and excited to be there. They were so enthusiastic! They swayed a bit to the O-Town tunes playing in the background, sang along at times and shouted greetings to fans, all while continuing to sign autographs.

The line just kept coming and whenever the representatives from the radio station would go and look, it was just as long as it had been when we started! They finally decided that there was no way everyone was going to get a chance to meet the guys, so they tried to hurry everyone along, but of course Ashley and Bourke had to talk a minute with everyone so the line didn’t move much faster!

They finally decided they would have to cut the line off as they had no other choice. The event was supposed to end at 1:00 p.m. and it looked like some people were going to get left out, so they roped off the line and informed the guys that it didn’t look like they would be able to see everyone. But being the gracious people they are, Ashley and Bourke decided to stay until most of the fans in line got the opportunity to meet them. They didn’t even stop to take a break! By the time they had finished it was after 2:00 p.m.