Supporting Cook in Independence

Each time Rebecca Arnold sees David Cook perform, as she did at an Independence watch party Tuesday night, she gets a little tingle as she remembers her luck.

After all, Cook sang at her wedding.

Arnold has but one regret. She didn’t capture the star-to-be performing, with his acoustic guitar, on video. Sure, she has plenty of still photos of the then-amateur singer performing a Don Henley song, “For My Wedding.” Cook reportedly learned the song the night before her wedding.

But, Arnold’s regrets aren’t for the reasons most would imagine. Sure, she didn’t learn until the day of the wedding that videotaping was allowed. And, by then, it was too late. The regret isn’t for not capturing David Cook on tape. Instead, it’s for not recording her wedding.

“It was my memory,” she said of the day three years ago. Her sister, Angie Goin, had been Cook’s classmate at the University of Central Missouri.

Arnold does admit her lack of foresight.

“We had no idea he’d be this big a star three years later,” she said, as the crowd cheered for yet another Cook performance.

Not all of the 225 Cook fans who gathered at the Hilton Garden Inn Tuesday night had personal David Cook stories. But those who gathered to cheer on the idol contestant, all claimed the “local boy makes good” tie. Throughout both of the Blue Springs native’s performances Tuesday on television’s American Idol show, the Cook idolizers cheered and waved “David Cook rocks” signs. The screaming and sign-waving began as soon as Cook took the stage, and continued until the idol host announced the phone number for Cook votes.

Angela Hart, of Lee’s Summit, organized the watch party at the Hilton. Her next-door neighbor is Beth Foraker, Cook’s mother. “We originally started having watch parties for fun with 25, it grew to 50 people, and now we have about 225,” Hart said. “It’s been quite a thrilling ride.”