Archive for "Community"
Leadership Wichita Holiday Get Together
Posted on December 9, 2021 by Ching under Community, Events, Leadership.
Our #LeadershipWichita class (class of 2014) recently had a holiday get together at Bill’s place. He has a 5,000 square-foot loft above Bite Me BBQ. It was the perfect place to gather because, being downtown, it’s centrally located for both East- and West-siders, and he had plenty of space for everyone.
Bill and his wife Marilyn were wonderful hosts. Besides providing BBQ for everyone, they also had a nice dessert selection and made a special cake for our group. It was fabulous!
Here are some pictures of our group. I’m glad several of my classmates made it to this event. It was great to see everyone. until next time. GNG.
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Meredith’s Visit
Posted on November 30, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
Meredith Novy was in town last weekend (she’s currently working in Baltimore, MD) so her boyfriend Brian Harshman brought several people together at Chicken N Pickle on Sunday afternoon for some pickleball fun. Some people couldn’t make it (Ev Kim had volleyball and Anna Le had to stay home and watch Sophia) but we got enough players to fill three courts for a fun ladder.
Debbie and Dave Fanning, Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance, Michael Harris, Lori Below, Karen Fox, Kim Knotts, Fong Witte, Brian Harshman, and Meredith Novy (our guest of honor) came out to play. Here are some pictures that we took at the end of our play session.
But the fun didn’t end there. After our pickleball session, a bunch of us went up to the Snowbound Ski Lodge (trip #2 for me) because several people hadn’t experienced it yet. The Snowbound Ski Lodge is located at Chicken N Pickle’s rooftop and it’s the perfect place for a holiday gathering.
It was so great to have Meredith back, even just for a weekend. It’s so much fun to play with and against such a talented pickleball player. We had a great time visiting but also hearing how difficult it is to get good pickleball play in Baltimore made me realize just how special our pickleball community is in Wichita.
Cheers to the best group of picklers ever! Can’t wait to have Meredith back! Only a few more months to go. Until next time. GNG.
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Nahola Team Tournament
Posted on November 28, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
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Karen Fox, Ramon Lozano, Bo Tolbert and I played on the team tournament at Nahola last weekend. I played in the event last year and recalled how much fun I had so, when Karen and Ramon invited me to be on their team, I immediately said yes. Bo, who was my partner in the ICT Fall-out pickleball tournament, agreed to be my mixed partner. |
The day of the tournament, November 20, happened to be Ramon’s birthday so, to surprise him, I got “EVERYBODY LOVES RAMON” shirts made for our team. It’s kind of an inside joke because they kept butchering his name at the PC Smash tournament last month. They were pronouncing it “Ray-mon” instead of “Rah-mon” with a short A sound.
Karen got a matching cake made. It was delicious!
There were seven amazing teams that played in the tournament. Typically, Kayla only allows six teams because there are only two courts. Allowing for a seventh team made for a really long day and quite a bit of waiting in between matches. We started at 9 AM and didn’t finish until 5 PM, which people ended up leaving near the end because of other commitments (we all thought we would be done by 3 o’clock – Brian and I had a nail appointment at 4 PM that we ended up rescheduling for another day). It was still a lot of fun despite all the waiting and even though we didn’t get to complete all of the matches.
Here are some pictures of the teams that participated in the team event.
Steve Vetter, Jen Reifschneider, Jen Tiano, and Jon Maugans (the winning team)
Michael McLemore, Greta Siemens, Denise Brinkworth, and Mike Adams (second place team)
Zach Nguyen, Fong Witte, Amy Jaramillo, and Matthew Rochat
Donnie and Tiffany Lesperance, Kimberly Howe, and Mark Armstrong
Mike Maloney, Shawna Geist, and Cindy and Ed Egan
Chris Wilson, Ian Carr, Michelle Dreiling, and Sharon Steimel also played but I missed getting a picture of their team. I actually didn’t get the pics of the first and second place teams. I stole those pics from the Nahola Facebook page. LOL.
Anyway, this format is really fun. I wouldn’t mind doing it again but probably not if there are seven teams because that was the reason for the extended waits between matches. Seven teams would work if you had three courts.
We are doing something similar at Chicken N Pickle next weekend on December 4. It’s going to be a team event patterned after Major League Pickleball. I’m playing just because it’s a different format and I was want to try something new and different. I’m kind of excited for it and will let you know how it goes. We might even livestream it. Stay tuned!
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Executives of the Year Awards Lunch
Posted on November 28, 2021 by Ching under Community, Leadership.
Former VP of Customer Operations at Evergy Jeff Beasley (he retired in June) was recognized by the Wichita Business Journal as one of its 2021 Executives of the Year. A bunch of us from work attended the awards lunch at the Hyatt last week. It was a wonderful celebration of several amazing leaders in our community.
After almost two years of working remotely, it was great to see some colleagues face to face. Most of our meetings have been virtual and video cameras aren’t always on so it was refreshing to actually see everyone. We will all be returning to working from the office in January so we will be back to seeing one another in person again very soon. Hopefully, it’s a sign that things are finally returning back to normal.
There were several executives honored at the lunch. I had met a few of them through events such as these in the past, before the pandemic brought gatherings to a screeching halt, but there were a couple of honorees who I actually knew personally. Ron McMahon, CEO of the Greater Wichita YMCA, was one of the honorees. I had met him through my stint as a group fitness instructor for the YMCA. Margaret Dechant, CEO of 6 Meridian (an investment advising firm formed in 2016 by 6 former Morgan Stanley wealth advisors), was another honoree. I met Margaret through pickleball. Incidentally, Ron is also an avid pickleball player.
It’s amazing to me how impressive many of the pickleball players are in our community. So many of them are successful entrepreneurs or business people. You could be playing with the President of a billion-dollar company or a professional poker player or some other multi-millionaire. You never know. That’s one of the great things about pickleball. Players from diverse backgrounds and all ages have so much fun playing together.
That’s all for now. Until next time. GNG.
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Another Weekend, Another Tournament
Posted on November 19, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies, Travel.
I traveled to Great Bend last weekend for the Turkey Classic. I hadn’t been playing indoors on wood gym floors much over the last year or so but my friend Ramon Lozano is one of my favorite mixed doubles partners so, when he asked, I couldn’t say no. We had dinner plans with Madison and Lindsay that Saturday night but mixed was scheduled for Sunday so I accepted the invitation thinking I could do the dinner and then just drive over and back on Sunday.
My friend Sandi Dobbs (mother in law of Mason McCanless, another pickleball friend) invited me to play in women’s doubles. I was already going to be there for mixed anyway and there weren’t many teams so we were trying to help them out. Plus, Sandi said I could spend the night at her house so I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth on both days. Then, come to find out, there weren’t that many women’s teams signed up so they were going to consolidate all of the play to Saturday. Anyway, it was a bit of a mess but it all worked out.
If I were only playing mixed I probably could have left Wichita around 10 o’clock because mixed wasn’t until the afternoon and it was only a two hour drive. With gender doubles starting at 8:30 AM, Karen and I left her house at 5 in the morning to get there with plenty of time to find the school and settle in.
I told Karen I’d been waking up in the middle of the night at 2 and 3 AM because I hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Little did I know it was all training for the day of our early morning drive to Great Bend.
Karen Fox, Jen Reifschneider, Sandi Dobbs and me
The day before the tournament, Karen’s women’s doubles partner Janelle Lindeman backed out and so Karen ended up getting Jen to fill in. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because she got a partner upgrade.
There were some last minute women’s sign ups so instead of having to play with the men, the women ended up with their own division. There were eight teams that were divided into two separate brackets after pool play.
Jen Tiano and Jenny Cole (holding the frozen turkeys in the above photo) won the top women’s bracket with Karen and Jen taking second (pumpkin pie filling prize) and me and Sandi in third (stuffing prize). They didn’t actually send you home with the food. Those were just props for the photo. But you did get a gift card so you could buy your own food. I’m actually grateful for the gift card because I don’t really like stuffing that much. LOL.
There were twice as many men’s doubles teams as there were women’s so they ended up with multiple brackets. These were the top guys: Chris Heck and Klee Watchous (first place), Ramon Lozano and Jeret Johnson (second place), and Justin McClung and Shawn Clark (third place).
There were 20 or so mixed doubles teams that played in the afternoon so there was a gold bracket, silver bracket, and bronze bracket. I’m not sure what happened in the other brackets but Wichita swept the gold bracket with Jen and Chris taking first, Jenny and Klee taking second, and Karen and Bo (not pictured because had to leave to deal with his car troubles) taking third. Ramon and I finished in fourth, losing to Karen and Bo in the back draw.
We joked that Chris, Jenny, Jen, and Klee flew in (yes, Klee flew the four of them in) just to do some exhibition matches. LOL. Chris joked that the drive from his house in West Wichita to the hangar in Benton was half of the drive time to Great Bend, which a little exaggerated but somewhat accurate. The drive would have been 2.5 hours from my house but it was only a little less than 2 hours from Karen’s house. I’m glad she decided to ride with me because it made the drive go by super quick. It also gave the two of us an opportunity to catch up.
Tomorrow Karen, Ramon, Bo, and I are playing in the team tournament at Nahola. I’ve only ever done it once and it was a complete fluke. I wasn’t part of a team but rather a last minute fill in. The teams this time are stacked with great players. It should be a super fun, competitive time.
Until next time. GNG.
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