About 1,000 attended benefit chili supper

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The chili supper fund-raiser to benefit Harrisburg Police Commissioner Bill Rice was a great success.

Organizers hoped to raise $10,000 with the dinner and auction. The final total has not yet been determined, but organizers are confident the supper at least met the goal.

Rice was recently diagnosed with cancer. City officials, workers, relatives and friends held a chili dinner and auction 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Town and Country Lions Club to help defray medical expenses.

"They figured with the amount of bowls and the amount of chili cooked we could feed about 1,000 people and evidently that was pretty well true," Fire Chief Bill Summers said.

All the chili was cooked and there was another batch cooked that night.

Everything for the dinner and auction was donated, so the city of Harrisburg and the organizers did not have any overhead costs.

Summers said the door was hardly shut between 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. as people shuffled in.

Police Chief Bob Smith, cousin of Rice, said Rice was standing at the door greeting people for about four-and-a-half hours.

"There was not even 10 minutes with nobody in line. At one time they were lined up on the side of the building waiting to get it," Smith said.

People are continuing to bring checks made out to Rice to the police department.

"You don't see things like this, people pulling together," Smith said.

Police Officer Curt Hustedde kept the crowd entertained with his DJ show and convinced the crowd to put together $200 to see uniformed officers Brent Davis, Sgt. Michael Riden and Zach Popetz do the chicken dance.

Smith believed the auction brought an additional several thousand dollars. Sheriff Keith Brown and his wife Nina made out well in the auction winning a cake, a car cleaning kit, a wrench, a certificate for Panera Bread and the vacation package to Nashville, Tenn., that includes a visit to the Vanderbilt University's Dyer Observatory offered by former Saline County resident and observatory superintendent Rocky Alvey.

The more popular auction items surprised Smith.

"Cream horns. There were six in cellophane and the cheapest they went for was 30 bucks," Smith said.

Smith and Rice's aunt, Judy Maddux and Ed Hayes, made about 90 of the pastries for auction.

"People were buying things for more than what they would pay at the store. They were just there to help Bill," Smith said.

Though the event was entertaining, there was a serious side to it.

"There was a lot of fun at the benefit, a lot of fun for people, but we never lost sight of the cause we were there for," Smith said.

Summers said the chili supper benefit only begins to aid the Rice family as Rice undergoes his treatment.

"This will be a drop in the bucket, but it's a start and it shows people really care," Summers said.