CANTON — Several Brookhaven residents were on hand Tuesday ashistory was made when the first mass-produced automobile rolled offthe assembly line at the Nissan Motor Co. plant to the cheers ofemployees, dignitaries and guests.

“It was a great day for the state of Mississippi,” said Dr. JimBarnett, House District 92 representative. “It was well done. I wasimpressed by Nissan, what they were doing there and the spirit ofthe employees.”

Another Brookhaven resident, Lillian Lilly, played a specialrole in the opening of the plant. Lilly, and her son Waldo LillyJr., are members of the Mississippi Mass Choir, which started theopening ceremonies.

“I thought it was really wonderful,” Lilly said. “The plant,because of its size and the massive equipment, was something tosee.”

The choir sang three songs during the ceremonies. They openedand closed with the Nissan plant opening’s theme “I Won’t TurnBack”. The second song, however, highlighted Lilly’s vocals as shesang “I Get Excited” with the choir backing her.

Lilly said she has known for a while that the choir would beopening the ceremonies, but was only recently discovered she wouldbe doing the solo.

“I knew the choir was going, but I didn’t know my song would beone of the selections until Monday,” she said.

The short notice did not overly excite her, she said, becauseshe’s an original member of the choir and has 15 years ofexperience with them.

“We travel all over the U.S. and internationally too,” she said.”We’ve sung before crowds of as many as 10,000 people before.”

The choir, with more than 150 members on the rolls, brought alarge delegation to sing at the ceremonies. The choir Tuesday wascomposed of approximately 50-60 choir members, Lilly said.

What did excite her, she said, was taking a tour of thefacility. She is a former employee of Homelite and, although sheexpected some major differences because of the plant sizes, she wasastonished by what she saw in Canton.

“We covered a lot of it, but by no means did we see it all,” shesaid. “Everyone was happy, excited and joyful. It was a funday.”

Barnett said a good number of residents of this area are alreadyemployed at the facility, but he did not get the chance to see manyduring Tuesday’s festivities.

Approximately 40 people from this area are employed at theplant, Barnett said he was told about a month ago. He encouragedothers to seek employment there.

“I’d like to see more people from this area employed there,” hesaid. “The spirit of the employees is high and Nissan payswell.”

Nissan presently has about 2,000 employees, Barnett said, butwill soon be increasing that number to 6,000 now that the plant isready to go into production.