3 minute read
Edmond Life and Leisure - July 3, 2025
The two volunteers who found patriotism & love
By Rachel Jamieson
What started as getting sent out on an assignment to take photos for LibertyFest sparked not only a revitalization of the festivities, but a marriage too.
“I did not know anything about LibertyFest because I always went home in college during the Fourth of July to Tulsa,” Eriech Tapia said.
Tapia attended University of Central Oklahoma for his bachelor’s degree in mass communications and public relations.
After that, he was invited back every year to continue to take photos.
“What started as photos morphed into redesigning our website and progressed into being president of LibertyFest,” he said. “From the old guard to the new guard, but we had a great committee who stepped up to the plate and ensuring Liberty Fest is going on for another 50 years.”
LibertyFest takes a lot of manpower, he said.
“I have always believed in patriotism over politics and in today’s time we really do need more patriotism than we do politics,” he added. “I work in politics and deal with politics, but we just need good family-fun patriotism that you don’t see in America much.”
He added that is what is great about LibertyFest
as it provides family-fun patriotism.
Taylor attended her first LibertyFest meeting a year ago, and a love story began.
“Eriech and I have been Facebook friends for years and somehow we never met between UCO, between Edmond, politics,” she said.
“We’d been to so many events together but never crossed paths,” Eriech added. Taylor sent the first message following the meeting and then double messaged to meet up next time Eriech was in town. Eriech was residing in D.C. during that time. This started many long distance trips for both from OKC to D.C. and back.
Couple now married
“We met at Sidecar Downtown, Automobile Alley that turned into a four-hour conversation that was very minimal about LibertyFest and about what I could do to help LIbertyfest,” she laughed.
“We never stopped talking after that.”
On July 5, 2024, Taylor was officially Eriech’s girlfriend. Then in November, Eriech had proposed to Taylor. They were married 367 days after Taylor had reached out on Facebook for the first time.
“I formally asked,” he said. “She was smiling from cheek to cheek.”
The Tapia’s have now moved states away to Virginia and are committed to staying involved. Eriech works for the council of graduate schools under government affairs officers, where he represents 450 institutions across the nation graduate programs. Taylor grew up in Edmond and attended Edmond Public Schools, and landed her first gig working on Congresswoman’s Stephanie Bice’s campaign.
Taylor met Eriech when she was one of County Commissioner Myles Davis’s field representative LibertyFest. Now, in D.C. she works in operations at the Capital Research Center.
