It was a country-chic mix of tuxedos, ball gowns and cowboy hats at the 2015 Kansas Inaugural Ball as legislators, Republican Party officials and supporters celebrated the reelection of Gov. Sam Brownback beneath twinkling lights at the Kansas Expocentre in Topeka on Saturday.

About 1,300 people floated around the Expocentre’s Exhibition Hall, enjoying a palate of Kansas beef, garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. Among them were U.S. senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, representatives Lynn Jenkins and Kevin Yoder, and officials from groups like Koch Industries, Westar Energy, Murfin Drilling Co., Kansans for Life and the National Rifle Association.

The Expocentre was adorned with mums and candles as table centerpieces and strands of Christmas lights illuminating the ceiling. The ball was one of several inaugural events this week, all of which the inaugural committee expected to keep around the $396,000 budget of Brownback’s first inauguration.

The ball was headlined by Topeka band the Exceptions, which played at the governor’s high school prom in the 1970s, Brownback spokesman John Milburn said.

The night began with Blue Valley North High School student Gracie Schram singing the National Anthem, a prayer led by Monsignor Vincent Krische and toasts led by state Senate President Susan Wagle, Speaker of the House Ray Merrick, First Lady Mary Brownback, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and Brownback himself.

Wagle praised the governor for enabling her to accomplish “grand things” without a divided government and expressed her gratitude for Brownback’s first-term initiatives.

“I thank God that Sam proposed the state income tax plan, and I wonder where the state would have been without his bold leadership,” Wagle said.

Mary Brownback, dressed in a cream-colored, silky gown by Canadian designer Frascara, spoke of the 2014 campaign season’s “rowdiness.”

“I don’t usually campaign, but (last year) I felt called upon to spread the good news about what my husband has done here,” Mary Brownback said. “It was fantastic.”

Gov. Brownback, however, had a different view.

“This campaign season was the hardest I’ve ever been through,” Brownback said. “Pat Roberts has sailed through his campaigns, and I think that’s one of the tougher campaign seasons he’s had.”

Brownback joked about how one of the highlights of the 2014 cycle — the debate against Lawrencian and 2014 Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate Paul Davis at the Kansas State Fair — engaged Kansans.

“It was raucous,” Brownback said. “I think (the debates) need to be a little World Wrestling Federation-like for the people to move in.”

Looking forward, Brownback said he hoped to “move this state forward in ‘the spirit of Kansas,'” which was the inaugural ball’s theme.

“Let’s celebrate a state whose people reach for the stars from the depth of their souls,” Brownback said.