Wednesday with Walt: Meeting Walt’s Ambassadors

I was thrilled to be able to attend the 40th Anniversary Celebration of Walt Disney World at the Magic Kingdom last Saturday. I started planning my trip months ago and I really wanted to be at WDW to celebrate this special anniversary of Walt’s dream.

The festivities were wonderful and there was a huge crowd and lots of excitement. After the stage show was over at Cinderella Castle, I was off to have breakfast and wait for the release of the special 40th Anniversary edition cupcakes. Once I made it through the line and received my cupcake, Susan and I started heading out toward Frontierland.

As luck would have it, the 2011-2012 Walt Disney World Ambassadors, Norman Vossschulte and Jennifer Mason, were right in front of me. We asked them if we could take a picture with them and they said “of course you can” and the Photopass photographer was there in a second. I was so happy to meet them and told them how much I appreciate the fact that they honorably represent Walt’s dream and all he held dear during each day of their reign as Ambassadors.

So, you might ask how the role of Walt Disney World Ambassador began in the first place. To tell you the truth, it was started by Walt himself. There were Disneyland goodwill representatives back as far as 1962, but he officially chose the Disneyland Ambassador in 1964 as he was being requested for appearances and interviews in numbers far greater than he could handle alone.

With the 10th anniversary of Disneyland Park, along with the release of Mary Poppins and many other activities centered around Disney,  Walt knew that he couldn’t possibly keep his work going while filling all the requests for his time, so he decided to select a single cast member as the official Disneyland Ambassador. Her name was Julie Reihm (or Miss Disneyland as Walt called her) and she represented Disneyland throughout 1965. Since then, the tradition has continued and in 1971 the Walt Disney World Ambassador program began as well when they named Debby Dane Browne as the first ever WDW Ambassador.

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