Tim Freeland gets giddy around this time of year.

He can’t help it. His thoughts drift back to a time more than 30 years ago to his first Defeat of Jesse James Days celebration when he was 7 years old and new to Northfield. His mom dressed him up in jeans, cowboy hat, boots and a bandana and let him wander the streets with other kids as part of the bank raid reenactments. It didn’t get any better than that in his eyes.

But the thing that has stuck with Freeland most from that very first DJJD raid was the voice of Don McCray, who started announcing the raid in the late 1960s and continued for 35 years. Something about his “booming” voice left an indelible impression on the youngster.

Call it a premonition or just being in the right place at the right time, but Freeland got his chance to be the announcer during the 2012 DJJD raid reenactments when longtime announcer and Northfield ambassador Dan Freeman became ill just a week or so before the celebration. While the script was pre-recorded, Freeland welcomed festival-goers, made announcements and was the emcee for all of the reenactments.

“As Dan’s health kept him from emceeing and running the show, Chip DeMann, who is the leader of the modern day James-Younger gang, showed up at my office at KYMN Radio a couple of weeks prior to the celebration and asked me if I was interested in stepping in for Danny, who had done it for 17 years,” Freeland said. “I was honored and immediately said yes.”

DeMann made it official this year, naming Freeland the official DJJD raid announcer. Freeland will be the welcoming voice leading up to the raids, the person who reads the announcements, plugs events, introduces the ambassadors and tells folks it’s time for Northfield’s most historic event reenactments to begin.

“Tim was the guy I thought of right away,” said DeMann. “Since we had the script recorded, we needed to find someone who could announce and provide play-by-play. Having Tim do it is great.”

Defeat of Jesse James Days General Chair Hayes Scriven agrees, although he thinks it will be a little different not having Freeman on the street as the voice of the reenactments. Freeman passed away in May.

“It will be really strange not having Danny here, but Tim will add the flavor and the quirks that people here come to enjoy,” said Scriven, who also is the executive director of the Northfield Historical Society. “He’s the right guy for the job. He’ll do Danny and Don proud.”

While the script that was recorded by DeMann last year for the first time was recently re-recorded by Ron Gardner — being trimmed from 10½ minutes to just over nine minutes — it will be Freeland who provides the color and who helps the reenactments go off without a hitch. It’s something he looks forward to.

“I’m a perfectionist,” said Freeland, who believes the script is the core of the celebration. “I’ll be trying to control the production so everybody is entertained. I want to increase the ‘wow’ factor by paying attention to every detail and making the raid pure entertainment. My role as emcee is to sell this celebration.”

First impressions

Freeland said from the time he was a kid going to his first DJJD celebration, he wanted to get involved. He said he constantly asked his mother how he could be a part of it. Freeland was taken with the whole historic aspect from the very start.

“I went in that bank and the history blew me away,” he said. “Seeing the bank and all the relics piqued my interest. From then on, it was a love affair with this event and the history surrounding it.

“Right there in front of the Scriver Building and bank is ground zero for the end of the Wild West. It showed outlaws this isn’t working anymore. The message was sent. Northfield wouldn’t be bullied.”

The bowler hat Freeland wears as the emcee of the raid reenactments isn’t the only hat he wears during the annual celebration. He doubles as the chairman and cluemaster of the DJJD Horseshoe Hunt and also is the webmaster for the organization’s official website: www.djjd.org.

But it’s the most recent role as DJJD bank raid reenactment announcer/emcee that has had Freeland chomping at the bit for a very long time.

“I’ve been waiting to do this since Dan let me be Dr. Whiting in the reenactments,” said Freeland, who noted that it was the first speaking role during the raid outside of the announcer and the “Get your guns boys” and the “Robbery, Robbery” lines. “I’m just starting to grasp how big this really is. At least it is in my life.”

Reach Managing Editor Jerry Smith at 645-1136, or follow him on Twitter.com 

“I heard that voice and knew I wanted to be the guy announcing the raid someday,” Freeland said of that day back in 1981. “I just knew I had to be that guy.”

Copyright 2013 Northfield News.