When one hears about the recipient of a key to a city, it’s usually a celebrity or a lifelong resident of the city. Well, two visitors from Korea came to participate in their daughter’s American wedding ceremony and left with a key to the city of Fairhope for their hospitality and goodwill.

Drs. Jim and Diane Thomas’ son, Gabe, married Bitna Choi in a Korean ceremony in January.

“This was my second visit to Korea,” Diane says. “My son has been there for five years. He teaches English at an academy. Bitna does the same thing.”

Diane explains when she arrived, the welcome she received from Bitna’s family was immeasurable.

“When I went over, the hospitality her family extended to me was over the top,” Diane says, laughing. “They took me to all of the best restaurants and treated me extremely well.”

After she received Korean hospitality for a week, Diane was wondering what she was going to do when Bitna’s family came to Fairhope.

“There’s no food that would compare, and it’s a culture of 2,000 years,” she says. “On the way home on the plane, I thought, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be cool if the mayor could make them honorary citizens?’”

Diane took her idea to the office of Tim Kant in Fairhope.

“When I talked to Mayor Kant about it, he got really excited,” she says. “I think he’s traveled to Japan, and he said Asian cultures are all about hospitality and gifts. He was on board.”

Mayor Kant’s secretary, Gale Fogarty, wrote up a proclamation naming Kim Kwang Gil and Choi Yeong Sun Honorary Citizens and Ambassadors of Goodwill for the City of Fairhope. The couple also received a key to the city.

Proclamation:

I, Timothy M. Kant, the duly elected mayor of the City of Fairhope, do hereby take pleasure in appointing you, Kim Kwang Gil and Choi Yeong Sun, honorary citizens of the city of Fairhope, Alabama, in recognition of the great distance you have traveled to visit our fair city and in recognition of the joining of your family with the Thomas family through the marriage of your daughter to their son, thus creating bonds of friendship between Fairhope, Alabama and Seoul and Chungcheongnam-do, Republic of Korea.

Furthermore, as a token of high esteem, I have chosen you to serve as Ambassadors of Goodwill of our city with full power and authority to inform others of the genuine hospitality and friendly atmosphere which prevails in Fairhope and of the many advantages and opportunities that our great city has to offer.

What is a Key to the City?

In some countries, an ornamental key — the "Key to the City" — is presented to esteemed visitors, residents or others whom the city wishes to honor. This practice is a variation on the Freedom of the City tradition, and has a similar symbolic meaning; evoking medieval walled cities, the gates of which would be guarded during the day and locked at night, the key symbolizes the freedom of the recipient to enter and leave the city at will, as a trusted friend of city residents.