A Win "Fore" Entertainment Fort Smith
May 2006If you only knew what a weird and wonderful experience it is for the publishers of Entertainment Fort Smith to be displaying a company-won GOLF trophy in our office.
And this is not just any golf trophy – it’s the beautiful, bronze, traveling trophy from The Fort Smith First Tee’s inaugural Good Friday Media Tournament. This means that Entertainment Fort Smith will always be the first name engraved on the trophy, and for the next 11 months we can casually, but proudly, show it off to our golf-playing friends and business associates.
The best thing of all about this trophy is that Lynn and I didn’t have to embarrass ourselves trying to play a game that we happily feature in our magazine but don’t personally know the first thing about, in order to win it. Steve Slagle of our advertising department and his teammate Gary Getsinger did it for us. Thank you Steve and Gary. Their winning score was “even par,” whatever that means! Ask Steve when you congratulate him.
The first thing I thought of when Steve walked in with the trophy was my high school gym teacher Marjorie Beall.
In my Bruin yearbook my senior year at Fort Smith High School (now, of course, Northside) Ms. Beall wrote: “Dear Linda, I enjoyed having you in my class – especially the year you were in glee club.”
It could have just been her ornery sense of humor that caused Ms. Beall to pen that remark. But it could have been she was thinking of the day she tried to teach me to play golf, too.
Golf wasn’t an actual high school sport back in those days, but Ms. Beall was a golfer and for some reason still unknown to me thought that I might be suited for the game, too.
Volunteering to instruct me in a round of the sport was her next mistake. No need to bore you with grim details, but by the time we had reached the third hole at the Fort Smith Country Club, she had to know I was a lost cause. Nobody quits a sport in the middle of a game, however, especially not a gym teacher. As we staggered off the course hours later, I though I heard her groan something about the longest golf game of her life, and she never mentioned the g-word to me again.
That was my first, and last attempt at the sport, and Lynn admits she’s never even tried to play. But we both do appreciate the sport and its fans. As we began publishing this magazine six years ago, it quickly became clear to us that lots and lots of people in our readership area are nuts about golf. They like to play it, read about it and will attend just about any golf-related event or fundraiser around. Our calendar has always included every golfing event open to the public that was submitted to us in time to print. We’ve also run features on many golf tournaments, players and events.
We’ve enjoyed covering the Rheem Classic as it has grown in stature and popularity the past few years. The event is now rated among the top five stops on the PGA Tour’s Nationwide Tour and features some of the world’s most skilled professional golfers on their way to PGA stardom. It also attracts the Golf Channel and its 65-milllion worldwide viewers to Fort Smith, along with hundreds of other out of town visitors. The tournament also provides great entertainment for area golfers and non-golfers alike, and has raised more that $1 million dollars for local charitable organizations since 1998.
We’ve also watched The Fort Smith First Tee program come into its own. It is now rated No.1 among 274 chapters worldwide and teaches golf and good values to more than 2,300 young people at its first-rate facility, with a 9-hole golf course and Bagby Learning Center. Another 10,000 area youth are served though the organization’s school outreach programs.
It’s still hard to believe our magazine has won Fort Smith First Tee’s first Good Friday Media tournament, and against some pretty tough competition, I might add. Lynn and I seem to be the only ones in the local media who don’t play the game. And though I can take no personal credit for the trophy, (thank you again, Steve and Gary) I have this silly hope that somehow, if she knew about it, Ms. Beall would feel proud – or at least vindicated.
Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.
Copyright © 2006 eFortSmith Media.com, Incorporated, P.O. Box 1341, Fort Smith, AR 72902efortsmith.com and Entertainment Fort Smith are registered trademarks. All rights reserved.
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