Vicksburg has received another honor to add to the list with the pope being the only person to place ahead of the city.

Shore Excursions of America Inc., along with the American Queen Steamboat Company, placed second in the Most Innovative Shore Excursion of the Year category at the Seatrade Cruise Awards for their On the Front Lines of the Civil War excursion in Vicksburg.

This year the first place award went to Aloschi Brothers European Tour Operators, which tours the pope’s summer residence and the Vatican.

The second place award was presented to Shore Excursions of America’s principals Bob Buesing and Jim Palmeri during the ninth Seatrade Insider Cruise Awards Ceremony in Hamburg, Germany.

“We are extremely proud of our team and the way we have been growing and evolving through the years,” Buesing said in a press release. “Our hard work and advanced product development has proven extremely rewarding so far. Hopefully, this level of integrity will bring us back to the awards in the future.”

This is the second year in a row Shore Excursions of America has placed second after being selected as a finalist for the award. Last year the company placed for their excursion Redemption and Rehabilitation at Angola Prison in St. Francisville, La.

Shore Excursions of America nominated themselves for the Seatrade Cruise Award against over 100 other excursions who were also nominated in the worldwide competition. Seatrade Insider later selected the Vicksburg excursion as one of the top three finalists for the award.

“We really are quite happy with the way the tour runs in Vicksburg. The gentlemen who portrays the soldier, his name is David Harris, he’s terrific, and we’re going to continue to use him and keep it as is because we think it’s perfect,” said Lindsey Geores, director of marketing for Shore Excursions of America. “No changes forthcoming right now for the Vicksburg battlefield tour.”

David Harris, a licensed guide at the Vicksburg National Military Park, has been part of the excursion since November 2013. Buesing and Palmeri found out Harris had experience in reenactments and asked him to entertain cruise guests who were waiting to go to the VNMP. He portrays his great grandfather Zachary Taylor Harris who was a private in the confederate army.

“I come on the bus, and I talk to them for about 7 or 8 minutes on what it was like to be a Confederate soldier during the siege in June and July of ’63,” Harris said.

Over time, his role has evolved, and he is much more interactive with the visitors on their journey through the park. Each person is given an identity on a card of someone who served in Vicksburg during the Civil War, which they keep with them throughout the tour. He even encourages the guests to give a rebel yell to run off the Yankees.

“I didn’t think these people would go for it but they do,” Harris said. “The whole room screams.”

Harris was thrilled to get news of the award.

“I was actually pretty excited. I called a lot of people. I called all my grown kids,” Harris said.

His kids thought he was lying due to his tendency to stretch the truth on occasion, but they all watched the American Queen Steamboat Company’s video of the excursion on YouTube and decided to believe him.

People who ride on the American Queen are the only people who have access to the excursion. The boat usually comes to Vicksburg during November and December and then again towards the end of February through June. Next year the boat is also supposed to make one stop in each of the summer months