Horseshoes anyone?

Dick Dauphinais

It was a glorious day on the “pitch” on Robson Ranch with beautiful sunshine, a cloudless sky with temperatures in the mid-seventies with only a slight breeze; most would call it a top 10 day. The flags were in place, the portable tent was up, the fans benches were filling-up; yes, it was the second annual Robson Ranch Veteran’s Horseshoe Tournament. The four horseshoe courts were all raked to perfection, and the stakes were all freshly painted in the three patriotic colors of red, white and blue. Official scorekeepers and a full-time judge were selected; we were ready for tossing shoes!

A solid mixture of armed force veterans, firefighters, police retirees and true patriots joined together for the tournament that was sponsored by Cool Screens (Guy Myers) and Paradise Liquors (Mike Collins). All 12 entrants needed to “qualify” for this event by throwing 24 horseshoes with legitimate points (those that were within normal rules) counted and then used to determine the pairings for this team event prior to the tournament.

A team of Army veterans won this year’s tournament comprised of Doug Hagan and Dick Dauphinais pulling out a close victory over Scott Baker and Jeff Harwell. The consolation prize was awarded to Jim Fox and Gary Patterson who closed out their bracket with a victory over Dean French and Gary Koening. After the tournament everyone was invited to Joey and Kitty Misiaszek’s for a very nice cookout and story-telling! A very successful day was enjoyed by all. We especially want to show our appreciation to our sponsors who added to all the enjoyment.

We are very thrilled to have this horseshoe area built and supported by Robson and do encourage more of you to participate in any/all of our three weekly sessions on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 9 a.m. There is a good mix of skill sets in our group, but there is a lot of strong support and we welcome anyone who wishes to join us. Come on out and give it a try.