'Twilight' actor disappoints fans

• Image

Press Photo by Ashley Martin Shannon Roller, left, and Kristen Vesledahl visit at the Mott Tractor Fest Saturday. Vesledahl helped coordinate actor Kellen Lutz’s cancelled visit to the Mott event.

Talk about it

MOTT — An actor from the popular movie “Twilight” who cancelled an appearance at the Mott Tractor Fest Saturday broke the hearts of many teens and young adults there and in the surrounding communities.

Kellan Lutz, who was reportedly born in Dickinson, was scheduled to come to the festival to sign autographs and take photos with fans, but a scheduling conflict put a kibosh on the plans.

“I was thinking that I’d be the first in line to meet him,” said 15-year-old Ashley Mogard. “I was kind of disappointed, because I was really excited to meet someone like that.”

Kristen Vesledahl, Mott economic development director helped coordinate Lutz’s would-be visit and was also disappointed by the no-show.

“We had him booked,” Vesledahl said.

She said the problem arose while trying to find a first class flight into North Dakota. The only one they could find would fly him out of the state on Sunday.

“He had a gig on Sunday,” Vesledahl said.

Mogard isn’t satisfied with that explanation.

“I think he’s got to come up with a better excuse than a scheduling conflict,” Mogard said.

Shannon Roller, 19, from New England helped coordinate “Twilight”-oriented activities for the day in anticipation of Lutz’s arrival.

“I was not happy,” Roller said.

They had planned for Lutz to judge a “Twilight” character look-alike contest, but since he did not come, Roller did the judging.

“We’re kind of deflated,” Vesledahl said. “We had people coming from all over to see this.”

Mogard had planned to take a picture with Lutz and wanted to get his autograph.

“When you live in small towns, not a whole lot of big actors come,” said Ashley Mogard. “I thought it would be kind of cool that a big actor would come to a small town like this.”

Over a hundred people of all ages attended the event, but Vesledahl said Lutz’s absence caused attendance to be “severely down” from what it may have been had he showed up.

Plenty of other activities were available for families at the event including inflatable jumpers, a tractor pull, vendors and face painting. Mogard said she had fun at the festival.

“I like to come to tractor fest, because I’m a big fan of John Deere tractors. But this year I thought it would be really cool if a big actor like him would have come,” Mogard said.

Vesledahl said she plans to find another star to come to Mott next year.

Tags: news, mott, twilight