Republican convention volunteer Nancy Anderton in front of her home in Dallas.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Nancy Anderton is a native New Yorker who welcomes visitors into her Dallas home with unmistakable Southern charm.
On a recent August evening, neighbors filed into her redbrick ranch-style home to shake hands with Republican candidates. Clad in a white shirt with a bedazzled Statue of Liberty, Anderton directed guests to the ice cream truck in her driveway before ushering them inside.
In less than two weeks, Anderton will put that hospitality to work as one of the North Texas volunteers helping with President Donald Trump’s Republican convention in Dallas.
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“I’m just one of those people that you know pitches in when they send out an email and say, ‘hey, we need help for this,’” she said. “I’m really excited.”
Anderton is one of four volunteers from across North Texas who told The Dallas Morning News they are eager to pitch in, even as they await details about their convention assignments. Organizers are trying to line up more than 750 volunteers per day for the Sept. 9-10 event.
Anderton, active in the Dallas County Republican Party, said “phones were ringing off the wall” when Trump picked Dallas to host the GOP’s first midterm convention.
Everyone wanted to attend at the American Airlines Center, she said, but few knew how to get inside.
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“After all the hoopla and everything, then we finally got a website they can go to if they want to volunteer,” she said.
Anderton, 71, signed up as soon as the Republican National Committee posted its request for volunteers and shared the form widely.
Related: Trump’s Dallas GOP convention puts out a help-wanted sign for volunteers
She first got involved with the party in 2020, when she and her husband volunteered as election judges in the presidential election. They made it a family affair, recruiting her daughter and nephew as student clerks.
Anderton still serves as an election judge and spends her free time helping local Republican candidates connect with voters.
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That was her mission on the warm August night when she brought kitchen chairs into her living room and made space for guests to hear from candidates for Congress, Dallas County treasurer and other offices.
“Republicans have to start promoting the candidates we have — whether they’re local candidates, state candidates or national candidates,” she said.
Barrows: “Unity of the party’’
Some Republican candidates also have signed up to volunteer.
Leslie Barrows, a Southlake attorney running for state district judge, sees the convention as a way to energize voters for the November election.
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“It’s just not the convention,” she said. “It’s also spreading the word and getting the word out about voting.”
THADDEUS HARDEN/Courtesy of Leslie Barrows
Born and raised in Dallas, Barrows, 53, decided to volunteer after attending the Texas Republican Party convention in Houston. She wants to get a peek into the national engine that powers her party.
“There was just so much energy,” she said. “It was about the unity of the party.”
Pitching in gives Barrows an opportunity to gain visibility for her campaign in Tarrant County. She said it also allows her to set an example of civic engagement for her three teenage sons.
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“I don’t know if we’ll get them going to the convention,” she said, “but maybe one day when they’re older, they’ll think it would be a great experience.”
Gardner: “Huge opportunity”
Sarah Gardner, a Dallas small-business owner, said she jumped at the opening to volunteer.
Originally from Austin, Gardner, 31, moved to Dallas after graduating from Baylor University to find a stronger community of young Republicans like herself. Now, the founder of the college apparel brand Established & Co. is eager to see how her new city handles the national political spotlight.
“Obviously, it’s a very exciting event for anybody involved in Republican politics,” she said. “It’s not every day that a big thing like this comes to Dallas.”
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Courtesy of Sarah Gardner
It will not be Gardner’s first national Republican gathering. She attended the party’s 2024 convention in Milwaukee that nominated Trump, calling it “one of the coolest events I’ve ever been to.”
The Dallas event will have no nominations or other official party business and was assembled on a far tighter timeline. “Hopefully they can pull something like that off last-minute,” she said.
Gardner said she decided to volunteer after struggling to secure a ticket. Some access packages offered through the Texas Republican Party had been priced from $5,000 to $10,000.
What mattered to her, she said, was finding a way inside American Airlines Center to take part in what she called a “historic” event.
She said the chance to help Trump or support the national party was a “huge opportunity.”
Neale: “Center of the universe”
For Jim Neale, volunteering will bring him back to where his political involvement began: the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas.
Related: The Republicans are coming back. The Dallas they knew is long gone
Neale, 64, said he was part of the “advance team,” helping set up the Dallas Convention Center for President Ronald Reagan. Then a sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin, Neale picked up the White House press corps from the airport as part of Reagan’s motorcade.
Watching Reagan deliver his acceptance speech from the wood-paneled stage remains his favorite memory.
“He was so dynamic,” he said of Reagan. With Texan George H.W. Bush as vice president, he said, the state “felt like the center of the universe.”
Jim Neale, who as a college sophomore volunteered at the 1984 GOP convention in Dallas, is preparing to do so again at the Trump-led event at the American Airlines Center.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Four decades later, the president of Quorum Energy Co. wants his 14-year-old daughter, Jordan, to experience that as well. While Neale will be on volunteer duty, he secured a ticket so she can watch the proceedings.
He expects September’s gathering to look much different than the last time. “It’s not a convention — it’s more of a rally for midterm Republicans,” Neale said.
Still, Neale said he’s ready to greet Republicans arriving from across the country.
“It’s a great display of Texas spirit — the can-do Texas spirit,” he said.