NOTICE of Special Membership Meeting

Unit 154 will have a special membership meeting on Saturday, April 11 between the morning and afternoon session of the South Bend Sectional, for the purpose of approving new bylaws. Unit members may download a copy of the proposed new bylaws off the home page of the unit website: www.Unit154.org 

UPCOMING UNIT 154 TOURNAMENTS

 70% + GAMES

John Aumiller & Matt Fultz, Fort Wayne 82.00%  2/3

John Aumiller, Fort Wayne & Al Patton, Wolcottville; 72.62%  2/3

Paul Spychalski, Fort Wayne & Gary Chaney, Sherwood, OH; 70.19%  2/5

Elaine DeLaney and Don Wertheimer, South Bend; 71.77%  2/5

Bob & Joan Butz, Kankakee, IL; 72.69%  2/9

Wayne Carpenter, Chesterton & Laverne Niksch, Portage; 71.23%  2/9

Cappy Gagnon, Notre Dame and Sara Marcus, Granger; 70.51%   2/11

Joan & Bob Butz, Kankakee, IL; 73.70%  3/2

Tom Wade, Chesterton & Alan Yngve, Lafayette; 73.96%  3/3

JoAnne Sobol & Carl Wheeler, Fort Wayne 70.0%  3/5

Elaine DeLaney & Don Wertheimer, South Bend; 71.06%  3/6

John & Tricia Killeen, Mishawaka; 70.0%  3/13

Joe Chin, Highand & Barbara Graegin, Schererville; 71.88%  3/11

RISING IN THE RANKS:

Junior Master:  Rev. William Blum, Notre Dame; Roberta Dakich, Valparaiso; Shirley M. Hahn, Hobart; Janet Jones, Porter; Roger Skurski, South Bend

Club Master:  Charlie Halberstadt, Westville; D. G. Huffer, Warsaw; Thomas Van Gilder, Michigan City

Sectional Master:  Joseph Sowder, Fort Wayne; Leonard Yarsh, Hobart

Regional Master:  Lee Baatz, Columbia City; Donna Beach, Valparaiso; Reggie Lowenhar, Granger; Sharon Snyder, Chesterton; Martha Harris, Highland

NABC Master:  Howard Chapman, Fort Wayne; Sarah Colvin, Fort Wayne; JoEllen DePaepe, South Bend

Life Master:  Geoffrey Hadlock, Warsaw; Patricia Skelton, Kokomo

Bronze Life Master:  Patricia Jakubic, Kokomo     

NEW LIFE MASTER:  Patricia Skelton 

My bridge story starts with lessons from my mother and father, Shirley & Raymond Skelton (San Antonio FL). Mom is the best at bridge. She does not get to play as often as she would like but I still call her weekly for advice. Mom is a Bronze Life Master. Dad is a National Master; however, he only needs a few gold points to earn his life master. Most of our bridge friends wish that their children would play bridge with them. I do not understand why everyone born in my time does not play bridge with their parents since some of my best memories are bridge cruises with Mom & Dad and the gang from Put-in-Bay, OH (Marian & Mike McCann, June Stoiber, Brad & Zoe Tichner).

About 15+ years ago, I was lucky enough to take some lessons from Jim Davis (Kokomo IN) and the game really started to make sense after these lessons. I still seek advice from Jim every Wednesday night at the Kokomo Senior Center. He continues to win against me; however, my partner, Suzy Wright, and I manage to sneak a top board off him 1 in every 100 boards (I might be exaggerating a little-it's more like 1 in 200).

I started working on my life master seriously about 8 years ago. Grethen Chappa (McAllen TX) carried me along to get my first gold point at a regional in Corpus Christ, TX. I miss Grethen and everyone at the McAllen Bridge Club.

I had grown up in the Midwest and I decided to move back to Kokomo, IN the summer of 2013. Now, I partner with Suzy Wright (Kokomo IN) and Sallie Landrum (Marion IN). These two ladies helped me achieve the last gold points to obtain my life master. Camille Cooper and Nancy Garrett joined us to make some awesome Swiss Teams.

In addition to my Mom & Dad, the following individuals have been important mentors: (1) Max Banan (Kokomo IN) and (2) Loren Anderson (Indianapolis IN). Each of them even played a few matches with me although they are much better players and not obligated like Mom & Dad.

Thanks for all the congratulations and now I’m ready to work for my bronze!

JIM FARNER DAY WINNERS  

Last year the Club held the first annual Jim Farner Day. The weather was brutal so we had a small group in attendance. This year, even though the temperature was brrrr cold, eleven tables were in play.

The winners were Jill Mroczkiewicz and Dee Stevenson (photo at left) with an impressive percentage of 64.27. Their names have been inscribed on the special wall plaque given to the club by Dr. Jim’s family.

Congratulations Dee & Jill.
 

FORT WAYNE HONORS MEMBERS

The Fort Wayne Duplicate Bridge Association recently honored 3 of their members, Mike Bonahoom, Rose Ferguson & Richard Petersen for their contributions to the growth of the Fort Wayne club, service on the Board of Directors and for their dedication in assisting others to learn and love the game of bridge! 

MIKE BONAHOOM

I have always loved the game of bridge. When I retired from teaching, I was encouraged by other bridge players to become a director. After passing the test, my wife, Anna Marie, and I started a bridge game on Saturday afternoons. Being a new game we needed a name and in honor of the City of Fort Wayne, we called it the Summit City Bridge Club.

A few months later some players asked Anna Marie and me to start a novice or limited game on Wednesdays. The game would start with me teaching a lesson at 12:00, followed by general play from 1:00 – 4:00. There were only three or four tables in the beginning, but the game continued to grow. Some of Fort Wayne’s experienced players suggested that since I was already there for a novice game on Wednesdays, that Anna Marie and I also run an open game at the same time. That’s what we did and both games continued to grow to nine tables or more in each of the sections.

With the growth it became difficult to teach and to prepare and run the games, so I quit the teaching part and concentrated on running and directing the games. Anna Marie took care of the hospitality and the arranging of partnerships and I concentrated on trying to make each session an enjoyable afternoon of bridge on both Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.

Anna Marie passed away in March of 2013. I tried to keep the games running as before, but doing the hospitality, arranging partnerships, and running the games simply became too much for me. In December 2014 I handed the running of the Summit City Bridge Club off to the Fort Wayne Duplicate Bridge Association.

I have enjoyed my association as a director and as a player with the bridge players of Fort Wayne. You are a great group of people and I thank you for all that you gave to me and Anna Marie.

ROSE FERGUSON

I learned to play bridge shortly after high school and what a blessing that proved to be. I played once a month in a 2-table rubber-bridge group. Unfortunately for me, all the ladies were married with children and I, being single, was compelled to hear the many trials and tribulations of motherhood and child rearing. I felt a need to spend my precious free-time more productively and thus began my path in duplicate bridge.

In 1960, my partner and I won our first 0-20 Event in a Fort Wayne Regional Tournament. I was now “hooked” on the game.

From 1972 through 1984, I held the offices of Secretary and Treasurer for the FWDBC.

From 1981 through 1991, I served as Caddy Master for the Fort Wayne Regional Bridge Tournaments. Our daughter became involved in Bridge at the young age of 8 years as a caddy. She was even recognized in the Midwest Monitor for her accomplishment.

In 1983 through 1985, I was appointed and served as Bridge Coordinator for the Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana (MIKI) Grand National Team Event.

In 2000, I was again elected to the FWDBC Board and served as Secretary up to 2013 with the exception of a 3-year period when George Spears served in that capacity.

In 1974, I taught my first bridge class at the request of a fellow church member. His neighborhood group was interested in learning the game. The only instruction manual and text available was authored by Charles Michaels and Ruth Cohen, titled, “4, 3, 2, 1” and covered 4-card majors. This was somewhat of a challenge since I, personally, played 5-card majors. However, I quickly switched to Shirley Silverman’s textbook as soon as it became available.

Teaching became a passion and almost a full-time job with five classes a week. I have taught for sororities, neighborhood associations, Women’s clubs, country clubs, school organizations, and ultimately, the YWCA and IPFW. As most instructors will admit, teaching is a gratifying experience. Especially, when a student thanks you for teaching his partner to play because they developed such a good partnership; or, when a student was welcomed into a new community because of her ability to play bridge; and when a rank beginning student had the ability to design a bridge flip chart which was so professional that I was willing to market it for her.

My challenge and motivation in teaching bridge is to instill a love of this fantastic game in my students. I am happy to say that a large percentage of the duplicate players, past and present, in our club are my former students. My payback are the smiles, hugs, and greetings when I encounter former students and they thank me for introducing them to Bridge and say that they continue to play and love the game.

Upon Bob Swindell’s retirement, Don and I procured ownership of the Tuesday Night Game as well as continuing to direct the Cedar Creek Game (circa 1999). Because of my offering free bridge lessons and enrolling new members for ACBL, we acquired the rank of a Two-Star ACBL Duplicate Game. We held two sessions on Tuesday night:  a beginners’ game as well as a regular game.

It is very difficult to summarize 40-plus years of active membership and service to bridge!

RICHARD PETERSEN  

1964!  What a year of change in my life. I moved to Fort Wayne to begin my employment at Magnavox, enrolled in graduate school, began skiing, and I started to play bridge. My early experience was noontime rubber bridge at work where Tom Carpenter introduced me to Kaplan-Sheinwold bidding. I loved those weak two bids.

In 1977 I met LaVerne, who became my wife in 1982. She knew I was a bridge player, so she took lessons from Ruth Stephan. For the next 13 years we played in several rubber bridge clubs. We knew of duplicate bridge but just didn’t have the time for it in our lives.

We both retired in the 90’s. That was when we decided to try duplicate bridge. Our first experience was above Boxbergers in the Tuesday night game run by Bob Swindell. Mike and Anna Marie Bonahoom were the friendly couple who made us feel welcomed and answered our questions about how to play duplicate bridge. LaVerne and I were soon invited to join the Fort Wayne Duplicate Bridge Club and the Cedar Creek Bridge Club.

As Class C players we worked our way up, went to tournaments where we did pretty well, and became life masters in 2000. We took the bridge director’s course and test at the nationals in New Orleans and the bridge teacher’s course the next year. Shortly thereafter, we were offered and accepted the positions of managers of the Tuesday night club which we now know as the Swindell Bridge Club.

About that same time the bridge clubs moved to 1930 Bluffton Road where our lease required us to do all the repairs inside the facility. I became a jack-of-all-trades. I took care of replacing and fixing the lights, repairing the water heater, fixing broken plumbing, designing and building shelving units, and repairing the furniture as needed. I set up and maintained the computer system and all its add-on accessories and programs.

LaVerne and I have both served separately on the Governing Board of the FWDBA for a number of years. She has been and continues to be a long-time member of the Cedar Creek Governing Board. I have had the privilege of training five new bridge directors and instructing all the directors in the operation of the computers, the Bridgemates, and the Dealer4 machine.

Craig Harold designed our first website. I inherited the job of webmaster when he soon moved away from bridge. I held that position for many years until 2013 when I passed the baton to MaryLou Clegg who now maintains our new website.

LaVerne and I still play, still manage and direct the Tuesday night game and, most importantly, still love this beautiful game. Our next goal is to become silver life masters and we are closing in on it.

NEW CLUB SANCTIONED IN UNIT 154

A new club in Chesterton — the Duneland Duplicate Bridge Club — was established in late 2014 with Alan Yngve as its director/manager.

The club has a Tuesday evening game at the Duneland Family YMCA, 215 Roosevelt Street, Chesterton, IN 46304. There is a mini-lesson at 6:30 (from one of the previous week's hands). The game follows immediately afterward (shortly before 7:00 p.m.).

Call 219-315-9438 or email alanbridge@mindspring.com with any questions.