Club #100: Kathy’s Duplicate BC in St. Petersburg, FL

For my 100th club, I flew to St. Petersburg Florida. Kathy’s Duplicate BC is owned by Kathy Newell and runs on Wednesday’s at the St Petersburg BC. I arranged with Gretchen Funk and Leon Lyday to keep the second half of my purpose for visiting St. Petersburg a secret. Not only was I attending my 100th club, I was naming Charles Gill, manager of the St Petersburg BC, as the recipient of the Nadine Wood Volunteer of the Year Award. Charley is President, manager, part-time director, partnership chairman and he writes a clever email on the upcoming club happenings every week! He is a great guy and I wish every club had a Charley. To surprise me, Charley presented me with a caricature of yours truly in honor of my 100 clubs in 100 days. It is really just fabulous. We both pulled off a surprise!

Well I achieved the 100 clubs but I needed more. I decided to visit another club that was in somewhat familiar territory. In about 1973, I founded the South Jersey BC with two other guys and we had games seven nights a week. We introduced a day game and a game for players with less than 100 points. I sold my ownership after a couple years, but the club survived numerous owner and location changes. Today there is a club called the BC of South Jersey, so I think of it as a continuation of club I founded. This was my 101st club. They had 14 tables, and I played with Joelyn Shilliday.

So on September 21st, I completed club 99 and spent the next six weeks basking in failure. Now I have exceeded my goal and I did it in 97 days (no one ever said 100 clubs in 100 consecutive days). The tour was great. Thanks to everyone. Bridge players are nice.

Charles Gill, recipient of the Nadine Wood Volunteer of the Year Award

Caricature of Craig's tour