2912 Mississippi Open

[JR Smith]

The Mississippi state checkers championship was held on May 26th at the ICHF in Petal, MS. We had a total of 28 participants in five different categories. The results are as follows:

Children: 9 participants, 1st place Zach Heitzmann, 2nd place Laura Parker, 3rd place Cameron Adams, 4th place Justin Walker, 5th place Landon Thomas

Youth: 3 participants: 1st place Joshua Parker, tied for 2nd place Katie Johnson and Ryan High

Women: 6 participants: 1st place tie Amanda Baker and Linda Seaton, 2nd place tie Nikki Andrews and Sandra Freeman, 3rd place Elizabeth Bartasius

Amateur Men: 5 participants: 1st place Tim Frasier, 2nd place Robbie Andrews, 3rd place Denny Baker

Majors/Masters: 5 participants: 1st place Charles Walker (new State champ), 2nd place Johnny Ramia, 3rd place Danny Pitts

The tournament was a round-robin. Each player played every other player in their group twice.

Link to Announcement, Result, Cross-Table http://www.nccheckers.org/NCCA/2012%20MS%20Open.htm

[Irma Sierra]

woww JR many players and new names, no?

[Hugh Devlin]

Jr thanks for report. I note the Amateur men has a 3rd place Denny Baker. Is this Danny Baker - Deloris's brother whom I met back in 1987?

[Hugh Devlin]

I've discovered that this Denny Baker is the son of the man I met in Mississippi during 1987. His father Denny Ross Baker is a brother of Deloris Walker and he was what I'd call a gifted tradesman who could do just about anything. I arrived at the ICHF a few days early for the 2nd International Invitation Tournament and met Denny (Sr) who was laying the floor in the Hall 2. This new wing of the ICHF was scheduled to open and coincide with the start of the 2nd IIT. Denny (Sr) was working on the floor design of what would become famous as the World’s largest indoor Checker Board. I would call in to see him each day for a chat as I found him to be someone who was very friendly with good life experience and I was interested in many aspects of American life (it was my first trip to the USA) like healthcare, social welfare, taxation, education, racism, etc. We had long and interesting conversations over several days.

On one of these days he was finishing the floor and had several boxes of cut off’s of the linoleum tiles used in the design and construction of this board/floor. He said to me “would you like me to make you a checkerboard from these cut-off tiles?” I assured him that this was unnecessary and thanked him for the offer (as I thought it would be a lot of work for him). However, on the day prior to my departure he came to see me and presented me with a checkerboard he’d made from these cut-off tiles, on the back of which he wrote “to my good friend Hugh Devlin”, and he autographed and dated it. I returned to Ireland with a wholly unexpected piece of Checker history, and it remains a most valued artefact in my collection.

[Palomino]

Thanks for sharing that memory with us Hugh, it's a fantastic story.

Made my day.."Pal"

[Irma Sierra]

.....NICE!!