Casper resident Nancy Rinn had a simple reason for attending the Wyoming 912 Coalition rally in Conwell Park on Saturday.

"I love my country," Rinn said.

"And I think the people in Washington are stomping on the Constitution; they're trying to pass laws that are unconstitutional," she said.

Like some others attending the rally, Rinn never considered herself an activist until she attended the April 15 TEA -- "taxed enough already" -- party in Casper that drew a crowd estimated at up to 1,000 people.

"I was a quiet conservative and got a loud voice," she said.

Dave Kellett of Powell, president of the Wyoming 912 Coalition, said the group wants to remind people of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, and then remember how they felt the next day.

"We were all Americans," Kellett said. "There were no Republicans or Democrats, whites, blacks, Hispanics or Arabs."

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington claimed nearly 3,000 lives, and all but 55 were civilians, he said.

"We want everyone to be united as we were before, that we were all one," he said.

While Kellett always considered himself an informed voter, he didn't become an activist until the TEA parties, he said.

But the trend toward activism, he added, began a year ago with President Bush's approval the $700 billion plan to buy distressed banks' least desirable mortgage assets in an effort to slow the financial market meltdown.

Saturday's event did not attract the size of the crowd in April, and the less-than-anticipated attendance disappointed Jeb Filkins, husband of rally co-organizer Gail Filkins.

"Everybody wants to bitch about politicians, but don't want to do anything," he said.

Even so, a people came and went throughout the day.

They heard children recite the preambles of the states' constitutions; listened to local bluegrass band Anastasia's Fault that played gospel and traditional American tunes as well as John Prine's anti-coal mining song "Paradise"; and sign petitions including one by the Constitution Party allowing its candidates to be placed on the ballot.

Participants brought and saw a variety of placards: "Remember 9-12, forget about taxes"; "Who gave unelected czars authority over us"; "Freedom did not need change"; "No socialist welfare police state"; "We don't want your change"; "A capitalist republic, not socialism"; "Vote the bums out"; "Fed up in Wyo"; and "We will never forget what Obama has already forgotten."

The event featured an open microphone for people to express their opinions and grievances, with one caveat, Kellett said.

"If you state a grievance, state a solution," he said. "We have enough whining, moaning and complaining (about problems) without a way of fixing them."

Kellett also suggested people write their solutions so the coalition could send them to Wyoming's congressional delegation, he said. "They're hounded by lobbyists and not from the people who put them there."

In response to the critics of this rally and those across the country, he agreed the TEA parties and subsequent events from grassroots conservatives were targeting the Obama administration.

"Everybody here is upset with the administration and the direction they're going," Kellett said. "If we'd been unified, this wouldn't have happened."

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. Read his blog at tribtown.trib.com/TomMorton/blog.