On Tuesday, May 26th, I was honored to accompany my sister, Mari, as her guest to Disney’s Partners In Excellence Award Dinner.  Mari works as an electrician at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and is responsible for repairing many of the animatronics in use at the Muppet Show and the brand new Toy Story attraction.  Through hard work and dedication to her role, she was nominated and ultimately given the Partners In Excellence Award, which is the highest award a cast memer at Disney can achieve.  Disney hosted an awards banquet at the Contemporary hotel to honor all of the recipients of the award.  I was completely blown away by the extent to which Disney went to show their appreciation to the winners.  It was a semi-formal affair and everyone was in their Sunday best.  We were first given the opportunity to have a professional picture taken with a faux copy of the award trophy.  After that we attended a beautiful reception with an open bar and several kinds of scrumptuous appetizers.  We were later led downstairs for the official dinner.  Seating was pre-determined and at each recipient’s seat was their own incredible trophy.  The award was a bronze image of Walt Disney holding the hand of Mickey the Mouse, on a marble platform attached to a wooden base.  The whole thing was approximately 12 inches tall and weighed 10 pounds.  The dinner featured several performances by cast members singing various Disney songs, accompanied by dancing costumed characters.  There was an early buzz about a guest speaker, and it turned out to be John Quinones of abc news fame.  John spoke about heroes in America, and like most of these speeches it was a publicity attempt to sell copies of his book,  but nevertheless he came across with some encouraging words and uplifting stories that helped add an even more positive note to the evening.  The dinner wrapped up with more song and dance followed by indoor fireworks that took me completely by suprise.  I qik’ed a few videos during the evening which you can see here and here.  What I really want to say is just how proud I am of my sister for receiving this award.  She works very hard and is well deserving.  Congratulations, Mari!