This report is going to have very little to do about bowling, and a whole lot to do with what is really important to me. Please read this and understand what this event means to me. Thanks, Jeff

This week’s edition of the road report comes from my hometown of Springfield, Illinois. This is the regional that I host and put together. It is also very special to me in a very emotional way. This tournament is named after one of my closest friends, who lost her life to cancer on June 9th, 2001. Her name was Mary Teubner and she was probably the most beautiful, intelligent, personable person I’ve ever met. During our friendship I became very close to Mary. Mary was my best friend’s ( Ken ) wife and we developed our very own special friendship. I always leaned on Mary when I was down, maybe a little too much sometimes, but she was always there for me and I will never forget that. Mary was like family too me. I remember when she died I was at the Masters in Reno. I was in a daze for what seemed like forever. She had been sick for quite a while, but it was still a shock for me to hear the words. At that point nothing matter except getting home and being with Kenny. I think about Mary at some point every day. She was a bigger part of my life than even I realized. She was a very special friend and I miss her more and more every day. I know she is looking down on me and I hope she realizes how much I love her !

Shortly after Mary died, I decided to rename our regional after her. The first couple of years we donated money to the Habitat for Humanity, but it was a no-brainer for me to change directions. I think everybody has been affected by cancer in one way or another. I lost my aunt years ago to cancer and recently lost another friend to the disease. I know that the money that we raise doesn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but if enough people contribute and help, maybe someday we can put a stop to all of this. We have averaged about $10,000.00 a year for the last 3 years in charity donations to local Cancer Research Centers, along with $5000.00 going to the American Red Cross disaster relief fund last year. I’m pretty fortunate to be heavily involved in the Springfield business community. That allows me to have close contacts for Sponsors for our regional. Through these sponsors we raise enough money to host our regional. I’ve always taken pride in the fact that we put as much added money into the prize fund as possible. Being a player I like to bowl for as much money as possible and I like to do that part for the other players. We also do 50/50 drawings, ball / shoe raffles and other events to help raise money for the charity. This year King Pin Lanes decided to donate all of the pro-am lineage back to the charity, which totaled over $1500.00 ! This event is a lot of work and carries a lot of frustration. Putting an event on this size is almost a full time job. I put in hundreds of hours in on this, but in the end it’s all worth it. Not only for Mary and the charity recipient, but for the fans & pro-am bowlers. The city of Springfield really supports this event and I’m proud to give it to them. Without all of the local bowlers this event wouldn’t be possible.

Friday, July 28th

This year we decided to run two pro-am squads and the WQLZ Rockin Racks challenge. The WQLZ event was at 5:00 on Friday night. It was a 2-game charity match in which 8 WQLZ personalities were paired with 8 PBA professionals ( including myself, Steve Jaros, Eugene McCune, Jason Queen, Greg Zicha, Bob Hileman, Eddie Byrd and Doug Becker ). Things were going well and everybody was having fun until the power went out in the middle of Game 2. Unfortunately we had to call the event after one game and the winner donated the money back to our charity. Special thanks to QLZ for all of their help and support this year. I look forward to working with them again next year on making this bigger and better. We had a great turnout for our Pro-Ams this year, with 76 entries on the early squad and a sold out 198 entries on the late squad. The center was packed all night and a good time was had by all. We totaled about $6100.00 from the pro-am for the charity !

Saturday, July 29th

This was the first year ( of more to come ) that we hosted the Member / Non-Member doubles. The reason that I decided to change to the doubles is simple, more entries overall and a lot more fun. We were also hosting the Senior Member / Non-Member doubles so we had over 170 bowlers competing over the weekend across 3 squads. I bowled with Mike Nape and we were bowling on Pattern 2. As you already know I don’t match up well on this pattern and neither does Mike. We figured that we would either whack ‘em or go up in flames. Well after 3 games we were swimming in gasoline at about –130. I didn’t keep notes of anything this weekend because with this being doubles I spent a lot of time chatting with Mike on strategy and other useless things ! Besides, my focus for the weekend is split in so many different directions that if I bowl well, great. If not, oh well. I can sacrifice myself for one weekend to ensure a smooth event. Anyway we bowled well the last few games, including Mikes 300 the last game with a yellow-dot, but it was all for nothing. We finished around +180 and in 30th place.

Sunday, July 30th

Sunday I spent most of the day working on Pro-Am results and finishing up some paperwork on the event. I really didn’t even get to watch much bowling to keep up on who was doing what. I like to have pretty much everything done before the event is over. As soon as the final matches finished up, we drew the 50/50 winner for $912.00 ( in which the winner donated $300 of it back ) and we announced the pro-am winners. Then it was time to present Dave Traber & Pete Argo and Guppy Troup & Roger Bowker their plaques for winning. Unfortunately for me I had to go straight home and pack to head to Chicago, Fort Wayne and Detroit for trade shows.

After totaling everything up, through sponsors, 50/50 ticket sales, pro-am ball sales, shirt sales, pro-am entries and other money raising avenues, we were able to meet our goal of $10,000.00 to donate to Cancer Research. With the help of my staff : Mindy Manci, Laurie Eby, Russ Suter and Tim Beck we were able to host a very successful regional in Marys memory. Without their help I would never be able to make this happen. Also thanks to King Pin Lanes and all of our sponsors that contribute. You can find all of the information about the tournament on this site, including sponsor info. Please visit their websites and support them in any way possible. Also take some time to read through the tournament info. Everything should be posted soon. Sorry that this report didn’t involve much in the bowling aspect, but this event was about so much more than bowling. It was about friends and family. There is so much more that I could write about this weekend, but I don’t want to bore everybody so I will wrap this up. I want to thank all of the bowlers that competed in the event, all of the pro-am bowlers, all of the fans who came out to watch and support the event, all of the professionals who graciously donated their time for the pro-ams ( some of them all 3 events ), all of our sponsors, and the list goes on and on. I feel like I’m giving an Academy Awards speech! Like I’ve said numerous times, this event means a lot to me. We will try our best to make this event even bigger and better for next year. If anybody would like to make a donation or contribute in any way, feel free to contact me in any way possible. Thanks again to everybody for all of your help and support.