I know you are probably all tired of hearing from me and about the Fish For A Cure Tournament held last Saturday on Lake Ray Hubbard. Well this is the last post about it until next year but this one is very important. Please stay with it until the end. It’s the long list of people who helped and contributed. We found out the hard way how little experience we had trying to put together an event of this size. As it got closer, time seemed to speed up and the list of things to do got longer. We could not have had the success we did without the following people:
Our sponsors. Many of these are tied to RHBC in one way or another, Thanks for coming through.
Daryl Flood Relocation and Logistics - David Simmons
Hooper Plumbing - David Horton
J&B Paint and Body - The Scheel Family
Kenny Bunch Plumbing - The Bunch Family
Jay Stone Sales - Kendall Stone
The Brouillette Family
Texas Nameplate - Preston Smith
The Olds Family - Russell Olds
Thanks to all those that donated to our raffles where we raised a ton of money.
William Hitchcock “Hitch” got all those Lake Fork Guides to donate trips. Thank you to the guides as well!
Matt and Tiffany Martin
Chris Atkinson
Robert Carter/Fishin World
Tommy Yetts
John Souhrada
Scott Gordon
Preston Smith/Texas Nameplate
FLW/MLF Pro Kurt Dove
Kenny King
B.A.S.S. Elite Series Pro Carl Jocumsen
Dr. Byron McKnight
Tracker Marine/Bass Pro Shops
Vic's Marine
Last but not least, the great Roger Staubach
Thank you to the best Tournament Director in the great Southwest if not the entire country, Scott Gordon. When we had our first meeting to discuss if we could pull this off, David Simmons said to me, “I’m going to contact Scott to see if he might consider doing the weigh in for us”. Scott came back immediately and said yes. This brought instant credibility, class and professionalism to the entire event from the start. Because of his vast experience with these types of events, Scott was able to provide the knowledge and guidance we needed to see us through this project. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
Thanks to the TFF and J.P. Greeson for letting us use this amazing web site to get the information to you the anglers of Texas about this event. We could not have done it without you. Thanks to Billy Dyson for his advice and support as well. Billy, that nasty stuff took its best shot at us but we’re still standing!
Thanks to Ryan Niemeyer and Bass Pro Shops and Denise Reagan-Hoyle with Tracker Marine in Garland. We needed a facility of this size to bring this off in style and you provided it.
To the fisherman who came out on Saturday, THANK YOU! With all the other tournament events going on in North Texas this past Saturday we did not know how many would come out. The wind did not do us any favors either! So on a day when we were praying to get 30 boats, 62 came out! I think it’s a testimony to how many people have been affected by this horrible disease of cancer. I heard many stories from people during registration, weigh in and since of how cancer has invaded your lives. It has taken your family and friends and left pain in its wake. We must do what we can to rid the world of it. We had everyone from Elite Series Pros to guys who have never fished a tournament in their lives on the water on Saturday. The cause was just. Thank you all
To the members of the Ray Hubbard Bass Club. As always, when I call you seem to come running with your wallets open and your sleeves rolled up. You raised and donated money. You fished. You volunteered at registration. You volunteered at weigh in. You helped clean up. You are the best people I know and I am proud to be a part of this Club. THIS is what a Bass Club is all about!
Last couple of people. Arie Curtis From the American Cancer Society. Arie contacted me out of the blue on May 10th of this year. It was a strange coincidence that someone from ACS would contact me on that day as it was May 10th of 2013 that I had my first chemotherapy treatment. Something immediately told me that this was meant to be. She has been patient, kind and worked with us in every way possible to bring this off even though she knew absolutely nothing about fishing tournaments. We have tried to educate her.
I can’t wait to get started on next year.
My friend and leader of this band of gypsies David Simmons. Three years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer, David was my VP and he jumped in to my seat and took the wheel. He took the Club in to new areas that I had not explored and grew it along the way. He stayed in the post of President in 2014 when I did not feel I should come back yet because of the chance of my cancer coming back. It has stayed away and I have come back and David has moved to the role of Treasurer. He took the lead on this project from the start, raised more money than anyone else, but it seems his most important role was talking me down off the cliff. There were a few times during the last few weeks when I saw this thing going bad and every time I did, he’d call me, and calm me down and let me know we were going to keep working and just do the best we could and hopefully it would be enough. The success of Saturday blew me away. We grossed over $17,000.00 with more coming in. Amazing. Unbelievable. Incredibly inspiring. Thanks David. You were right.
That puts a wrap on FFAC 2016. We will be back and knocking on your door next year to make FFAC 2017 a bigger success. Thanks for reading through this.