Hammies help the Horsemen with "Relay for Life"...

Last weekend, the American Cancer Society sponsored an event called the Relay for Life. This is a gigantic fund raiser which, from what I can tell, takes place everywhere and comes in many forms -- creativity and imagination being the key. This particular event was sponsored by a group of equestrians (maybe that's too fancy of a name, maybe "cowboys and cowgirls" and "wannabes" more fits the bill) from Shelby County and took the form of what is called a "Poker Ride."

Our amateur radio club, Shelby County Amateur Radio, Emergency Services (SCARES), has provided communication assistance for this for a few years now. Our role is to provide communication at the various checkpoints along the route the riders must travel. We give a pretty quick response to emergency situations, and help with traffic control at the rally points and the road crossings. Each year, different challenges come up and the group has come to rely on our ability to communicate quickly with emergency services providers. This year was no different. It seems a horse either threw a rider or just decided to get out of there, because it was off and running by itself down a pretty busy highway. Our guys were able to track the horse and direct the club members to its location, in a corn field maybe a mile down the road.

My particular station for the past two years had been a crossing which has the riders coming out of a woods, along a trail which this year is flanked by corn, which is about 6' tall. At the end of this little trail, they have to cross a somewhat busy two-lane highway. I get them across when the lanes are clear and stop traffic if I have to. Horses don't really move that fast on these roads, and sometimes they will stop right in the middle. Most of the people in the cars and trucks are cooperative, partly because they want to stop and check out this site of about 20 horses at a time crossing the road. It really does look pretty cool if you are not used to seeing this many horses every day.

The riders each paid a $15 entry fee. When the ride began, they would get a poker card (from a regular deck of playing cards), and would draw one at each of the rally points. At the end of the ride, the people with the best poker hands won the door prizes. The weekend featured a camp out, a cowboy-style dinner, and musical entertainment in the evening. From what I could tell, this was a pretty good, if not occasionally rowdy, fund raiser. I was told that they had over 160 riders!

In my early flying days, we used to do this at our flying club and would set it up at small airports all around the state. It was good flying and lots of fun.

In any event, I know they raised a good bit of money to help fight a pretty insidious illness, and it was our pleasure to assist.

We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell. I choose the latter and that is why we volunteer to help in this way. If we feed our faith, our fears will starve to death.

Hooah