50th Anniversary Party Comes to Fruition

Oct. 11, 2014 

by Honey Leveen

A year of hard work and planning by some very dedicated, committed volunteers came to fruition on October 11, 2014. That’s when a full day of activities to commemorate HCC’s 50th anniversary took place.

Volunteers started gathering at the event site around noon. Soon, participants in a special commemorative flotilla started arriving. At 2:30 PM, about 50 decorated boats took off in the flotilla. Read more about this in Joe Coker’s story.

A party inside the beautiful Bay Area Community Center in Seabrook, TX, followed. Guests started arriving at the party upon returning from the flotilla in the late afternoon. Snacks and soft drinks awaited them. There were also exhibits to see and silent auction items to bid on. About 150 people attended.

Former HCC Commodores and other paddling leaders from around the state of Texas attended. There were around 150 party guests.

A catered dinner by Joe’s BBQ of Alvin was served. It was followed by a commemorative program MC’d by John Bartos.

I believe everyone who attended had a very good time, and that this was all due to the countless hours HCC volunteers and organizers put into planning this event.

I want to give special thanks to the following people:  

• Christy Long, for the countless hours she spent charting and assigning volunteer work shifts so that all guests would feel welcome.
• Joe Coker for his vision of a 50 decorated boat commemorative flotilla and then for the countless hours he spent organizing and planning it.
• Sherrie Blifford who personally handcrafted 70 commemorative flotilla flags. This must have taken a huge amount of her time. It saved HCC a lot of money.
• Natalie Wiest for soliciting exhibitors and silent auction donors, keeping track of them, and running the silent auction.
• Fraser Baker for being the mastermind who created and sent party invitations and kept track of RSVPs.
• Ann Derby for her “art eye” and design of our special HCC 50th anniversary logo and t-shirts.
• John Bartos for developing and presenting the excellent program.
• Bob Naeger for keeping event finances on track and for greatly assisting with the party facility rental.  

There are a great many more people to thank. All in all, about 40 additional HCC members and friends volunteered to make the party great.

Those named above actually did more than I described. Our planning committee met monthly, sometimes more often, over the course of a year, to plan this event. Everyone pitched in. If there was a task to do, someone stepped up to do it. I truly wish many other committees I’ve served on were as enjoyable and worked as well as this one did. All of us were dedicated to the common goal of making this party into a really terrific, once in a lifetime, memorable event. That’s what it turned out to be!

The author, Honey Leveen