Wow!!! When we selected July 18 for our second tournament for 2009, the big question was "What do we do about the heat?" Past experience indicated that the temperature, humidity and direct sun can be a real challenge, particularly for our more senior players. This year we got lucky. The temperature stayed in the eighties and the humidity was down
The second WOW was that we had forty five players. This is the biggest turnout in Richmond Horseshoe Pitching Club history. For those who competed in G Class, we will get your trophies to you as soon as possible. We only had on hand trophies for 6 classes.
We decided on seven classes, four classes of 6 players and three classes of 7 players. We decided to have A class at 40 points and or fifty shoes. The remaining classes were 30 points or 40 shoes. This seemed to get each of the two flights through in a reasonable time and allow the final group to get on the road well before dark. For details on the statistics, see the Tournament Results elsewhere on this site.
Richmond was honored to have seven members of the Campbell family join in the festivities. Dayton Campbell (age 9) proved to the “big people” that he can compete with anybody in his ringer percentage. He finished 3rd in C Class with a final ringer percentage of 36.79.
We also had an extended working visit from Thomas Banks. For those of you who haven’t heard, Thomas suffered a cardiac arrest at the horseshoe pits about 3 PM on Sunday, June 28th. Thanks to the great efforts of a number of people, Thomas’s heart was restarted on site before he was taken to MCV hospital. On Thursday, July 16th he was cleared to go home. Even though Thomas could not play Saturday, he spent most of the day keeping score for the tournament. His recovery has been truly amazing.
Thank you to all who contributed to the medical fund for Thomas. Together, $250 was collected. I’m sure MCV will want more than that, but it meant a lot to Thomas and his family.
Ivan Morton was again our chief provider of breakfast and lunch. This time he was assisted by Brian and Travon Mitchell who caught the fish, cooked them and shared them with us at lunch. Thank you to all who contributed drinks, ice and other assistance.
In April we added the bleachers, the flag pole and flags to the courts. This tournament we added some umbrellas to provide shade for the scorekeepers and some of the spectators. We plan to continue to improve the Gillies Creek Park horseshoe pits so that everybody will enjoy coming to Richmond. We enjoy your presence and hope that your day was a good experience.
If you have any suggestions about what we should do for next year, please let me know at chotto@cavtel.net.
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