MINNESOTA HORSESHOE PITCHERS'
Ringer Digest
January/February/March
2021
A Charter of the NHPA
 
Official Publication of the Minnesota Gopher State Horseshoe Pitchers' Association
Charter Bulletin Board
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2021 MGSHPA Tournament Schedule

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Harold Schrader
Tribute to Harold Schrader
By Helen Hawkinson

     I am writing this tribute for Harold Schrader's horseshoe family because he recently passed away at his home in Easton, Minnesota at the age of 98. I have never had the pleasure of personally meeting Harold, but those who I recently spoke to about him described him as "a peach," a passionate horseshoe pitcher, and a sports fanatic. He loved America, and was a proud World War II Veteran, a Commander at the American Legion for many years, and a life member of the Wells VFW Post 1778.

     Harold started pitching in 1985 when he was 61 and continued for 35 years. He played league at N. Mankato until two years ago at the age of 96! His daughter accompanied him to a lot of his tournaments where he won countless trophies and titles. He was especially proud of his World Championship (Elders Class B) in 2006 in Gillette, Wyoming at age 84, two 2nd place World Championship titles (both Elders Class B) in 2010 (Cedar Rapids, IA) and 2012 (Knoxville, TN) and 6 MN State Championships (2002-2007). Harold was inducted into the MN Horseshoe Hall of Fame in 2006, and played in the National Senior Games in 2015 at the age of 93. One of his most prized possessions was his patchwork quilt made from all of his horseshoe patches seen in the photo below. Everywhere he went he talked about his love of the game, and his daughter said he lived and breathed horseshoes - its what kept him going after his wife passed 10 years ago.

We can only hope to be able to play horseshoes as many years with the same passion as he did. Thank you Harold for your military service and for sharing the love of the game of horseshoes to those around you.

Harold's quilt

Wayne Davis
Obituary - Wayne Arthur Davis
Wayne Arthur Davis, age 71, of Kasota, passed away December 15, 2020, at his home, with family and best friends by his side. 
Due to Covid restrictions, a Celebration of Life will be held at a later date. 
Wayne was born September 27, 1949, in Mankato, to George Davis and Jane (Johnstone) Davis . Wayne graduated from St.PeterHigh School and UW Madison. Wayne was united in marriage to June (Maas) on May 24, 1986. Wayne owned and operated his own business, Wayne Davis Construction for 25+ years. 
Wayne was an avid horseshoe player and proud sponsor of his team "Wayne's World". In 2019, Wayne was presented the Presidential award in recognition for his outstanding dedication to the North Mankato Horseshoe Club. Wayne's other favorite pastimes included grilling on his Traeger, gardening, fishing, deer hunting, watching NASCAR and Football. He also enjoyed listening to music and spending time with friends in his man cave. 
Wayne is survived by his wife June, Step children, Kristi (Bill) Krenik and Jason Ewert; grandchildren, Chloe, Halla (Alex), Damieon and Emma; great-grandchildren, Henry and Eloise. Wayne is also survived by 5 siblings, many nieces, nephews, friends and best buddies, Bob, Carpet and Loren. 
He was preceded in death by his parents and 2 brothers.
 
Rick
From the Prez
By Rick Wright

Hey Everyone
     The year 2020 will definitely be a year that we would all like to forget. For those of you that have lost a loved one, I am very sorry and my prayers are with you. I am positive that this pandemic will pass and we will be playing horseshoes again and having fun competing with our horseshoe family and friends. I hope that 2021 will bring a healthy, positive attitude back into our lives.
     I know that a lot of you fellow pitchers did not like hearing that you would lose your longevity membership if you did not purchase your 2020 card and I do understand where you are coming from. It was very unfortunate that we did not have a lot of tournaments or league play in some areas however buying your $38 card continues to support our non profit organization. ($25 supports our national & $13 supports our Minnesota Charter). These funds are important in putting on our State Tournament and maintaining the Hall of Fame trailer that we all enjoy. I hope this helps you all to understand why this is so important for your continued support. So I encourage you all to get your 2021 membership card early and check out our new tournament schedule that Josh has provided.
     I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season and I truly believe we will have an exceptional 2021. Let's all be positive together and enjoy the new year to come.
See you on the courts!
Rick

Jeff Washburn
Southern Vice President
by Jeff Washburn

     Happy Holidays to all our Horseshoe friends and families. I am looking out the window on Dec 11th to no snow and fairly mild temps. I actually tossed a few shoes at the Brooklyn Park courts the past two days, which is pretty good for mid-December. We all know this will be changing soon.
This Holiday season has been a season of hope for me and maybe for some of you, too! Not only surrounding the meaning of Christmas, but also knowing we are all getting closer to the end of this very tragic pandemic. It is a good time to reflect on what is really important to us in our lives, and that is our family, friends, and hopefully good health.
I also see light at the end of the tunnel after viewing the growing list of horseshoe tournaments now scheduled for 2021. For those who enjoy the challenge, maybe a bit of pressure, and true camaraderie that comes with participating in tournaments, it is very encouraging to know we will all be back on the courts next year. For those who have never participated or are thinking of maybe considering entering a tournament, let me offer a few words of encouragement to give it a try. You will not be disappointed, and the club(s) will appreciate your support.
As we all start to think about our goals and resolutions for the new year, lets keep the thought maybe somewhere on our list of what each of us can do to support the growth and well being of our great game of horseshoes.
Here's to hoping each of you and your families have a Blessed Holiday Season and a safe, healthy, and Happy New Year, with lots of ringers.


Jerry
From the Editor
Jerry LaBrosse

Special Note: When the Holiday greeting was sent out from the officers and directors a few weeks ago, one very important name was missed. Michelle Foard is Promotion/News Media Director. Michelle has brought a fresh new perspective and many good ideas to the MGSHPA team and we are very very grateful for her services. Michelle is an expert in social media and is spreading the word of our activities throughout various media platforms. All of you are invited to contact Michelle with any questions, concerns, ideas, or comments regarding horseshoes and our state organization. Thank you Michelle, and we're happy and very lucky to have you on the team!

    
     I hope everyone had a healthy and happy holiday season. 2020 will long be remembered as a very challenging year.....to put it mildly. Although there were a lot of bad things happening, we need to try to find the good things that occurred and focus on them. No matter what you may be thinking, I believe everyone has had some positive things happen in their lives. Perhaps the addition of a new baby in the family, or a pet. Maybe a new positive career change, or a new relationship. Or maybe just the fact that you are healthy. Whatever it may be, try to focus on the positive things and be grateful for them.
     Looking forward to 2021, I am hoping for a full roster of tournaments so we can get together and play our great game with friends we may not have seen for awhile. I am running 3 events during the winter months, but will be very limited and careful to keep the number of people in the facility to a minimum. We will be watching as many safety protocols as we can.
     One thing I want to mention is the fact that even if you are not currently pitching, or even planning to pitch until the pandemic is more under control, I urge you to still consider purchasing your 2021 membership. As I'm sure you know, membership dues are the only source of income for our state organization, and without them we are not able to function the way we need to. I would also encourage you to renew your membership on the NHPA website using the new Eshoe feature. It is so easy that even I did it in about 2 minutes. Check out Josh's article for more on Eshoe.
North VP" Message   By Eric Dehkes
                      Eric
       
          Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the Minnesota horseshoe pitchers! As North VP I am writing to send a little update and keep in touch. 

        I am hopeful that things will get back to normal (or almost normal) and we can pitch more this coming 2021 season. If any of the League Directors in the Northern area have any questions please contact me by email at dehkeseric@gmail.com. We would like to see all of you at the Spring State Meeting, the exact date and location to be determined and announced. All MGSHPA members are welcome. We should brainstorm to recruit more leagues and/or tournaments around the area and also to recruit more members.
Stay safe and healthy and we will see you soon.
Eric Dehkes

Michelle Foard
Promotions/News Media
By Michelle Foard

Happy New Year everyone. I hope the new year is finding you and your loved ones healthy. We need to approach this new year like a regular year. We need to make plans and get excited for the new horseshoe season. So with that don't forget to renew your membership. With the new season we are always looking for ways to get people to join us. Looking back at last year's season I realized something. Non Sanctioned tournaments are a great place to meet all kinds of players and talk to them about joining. Last year many sanctioned tournaments were cancelled. With that in mind I was promoting a few non sanctioned tournaments on our FB page. I know many of you are not on social media. So I reached out to a few people last year who I thought would enjoy a non sanctioned tournament. So this year I would like to reach out to those not on social media who would be interested in knowing about non sanctioned tournaments. I know of 4 that will happen depending on covid of course. Ham Lake Lanes in April, Hinkley in July, Askov in Aug and a weekend tourney at Ham Lake Lanes in Sept. So if you would like an email about these tournaments please send me an email at Lynx3921@aol.com and I can put you on a list. This fall I recruited 2 new players at the Ham Lake tourney and they started this fall in Isanti. So let's make plans to get this year rolling and pitch some shoes. Stay safe and see you soon.
Michelle Foard
Josh
  
From the Stats Man - R/D - Webmaster
  By Josh Olson

Let us Ringer in the New YEAR!

     Happy Holidays to everyone, I hope you all were safe and had a very Merry Christmas and are enjoying what we hope is a way better New year than what we experienced in 2020. SO, Cheers to 2021, Hope to see many of you at some of the up-and-coming winter tournaments, make sure you check out the schedule online, there are many ways to find Tournaments, not just in Minnesota but throughout the entire United States. How you might ask? E-SHOE. More on E-Shoe and what it all has to offer.


E-Shoe where to find it and what is all about?

How to find it?

We will have a Link on our MGSHPA website very soon.

It is also available at www.horseshoepitching.com if you scroll down on the main page about halfway you will see E-Shoe. Click that link and it will send you to https://nhpa-eshoe.com

E-Shoe basically is going to be your one stop shop for Horseshoe Stats, Tournament Events and even Results.

     Everything will be going through E-Shoe, it is replacing NATSTATS. You will be able to access your stats from all the events you have participated in the last 12 months just like the Personal Search feature in NATSTATS. E-Shoe will also be featuring an Event search. With that you will be able to select the state/charter and then you will see the list of events that are going on throughout the year. This will change how tournament events will be submitted for Stats. For those Tournament Directors that use HSMaster, it will have an updated version that will include a E-Shoe button, with that you will be able to send your Results directly from HSMaster if you have an Internet connection. And that brings me to another thing that is interesting, with E-Shoe your ringer % will and can be updated in real time. As soon as the tournament you pitched in has been sent to E-Shoe, if it is a top 3 event of your last 10 it will change your Ringer %. So, for a quick example, if you do not have many events for the up coming year or maybe you are new or just getting back into playing in Sanctioned horseshoes. If you play in a Tournament on Saturday, the results can get reported right away to E-Shoe, and you could enter in Sunday's tournament with that Ringer% that you finished with on Saturday's tournament less than 24 hours ago. Again, that is if the Tournament Director submits the Tournament results from HSMaster with an Internet Connection, without the Internet connection you will not be able to submit the results instantly with HSMaster. We will no longer be sending Tournament results to the Natstats Director, instead you will need to send the results to your State Statistician (ME) and then I will enter the stats from the tournament manually. Another thing that is new with E-Shoe is you can renew your membership all online. You can search for your name, and then it will show the current years membership, so for example, most will see 2020, if you click renew you will be able to pay online just after a few clicks and you are up to date in seconds. It will update after you refresh the page and show that you are current on the 2021 membership dues. You can continue to pay through league and all that good stuff, but if you sign up for a tournament and you are not current on your membership dues, if I were the tournament director, I would ask that you pay for your membership on the spot then you can play, no excuses now!

More Info and things to check out in 2021!

     Hopefully everyone has seen the upcoming Tournament Schedule for 2021! Lots of new Tournaments, Jerry LaBrosse will be hosting not 1, not 2 but 3 Different Tournaments in 2021, Jerry hosts some of the Top pitchers in the State during the winter and has the "World Class" pitching environment that can get everyone ready for a World Tournament! Clank & Thud in Becker is back and will also be hosting some Tournaments later in the spring. We also hope to see the Junction Bowl in Isanti open this winter as well for Leagues and Tournaments once the shutdown ends. One thing to consider and keep in mind the World Tournament is scheduled to happen in Winnemucca, NV  July 19th - 31st, 2021.
Four (4) Sanctioned events are needed to qualify, so there are plenty of tournaments this winter to make that happen if you still need a tournament or two. Please also know that these Winter Tournaments do have limit of amount of participants so please keep that in mind when signing up, so if you are looking to pitch and need some tournaments send your entry fee in asap!

That is all for now, I hope everyone has a Happy New year and I hope to see you all on the Courts!

Josh

Rockford Ringers
By Marlys Timm
     Riverside Park in Rockford was rocking around the 100 Christmas trees all lit in a ceremony by the Boy Scouts following a 5 PM fireworks display on Saturday December 5th.  They have a "Sponsor a tree" community outreach with various organizations, businesses, groups, and individuals involved. The ceremony was posted Live on Facebook where lots of viewers at home could enjoy as well. Our horseshoe club always supports the community and the display remains lit through Jan 1st.  Club President Ron Fadden battled COVID and was hospitalized at Abbott but is home and recovering well. We want to wish everyone a happy & healthy 2021.

Tournament Info


UPCOMING EVENTS
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NHPF BENEFIT TOURNAMENT

Saturday January 23rd
Greenfield Horseshoe Club
Entry Fee $40
Limited to first 21 PAID entries

$5 of each entry donated to NHPF
Handicapped classes if 10% or more
7 person classes 
 40 shoe games
Contact Jerry LaBrosse to confirm
 open spots before sending entry
Once confirmed, send to:
8170 Fern Lane
Greenfield,MN 55357
Jlabro6186@aol.com
612-819-7353
alternate weather date Jan 30th

ICE HOLE OPEN

Saturday February 6th
Junction Bowl, Isanti
Limited to the first 20 PAID entries

2 shifts - 50 shoe games

Tournament contingent
 upon our fine Governor
 reopening the state.

Contact Shawn Warnemunde
414  11th Ave NW
Isanti, MN  55046

763-227-1804

smwarnemunde@msn.com

COVID CRUSHER

Saturday February 20th
Greenfield Horseshoe Club
Entry Fee $40
Limited to first 21 PAID entries

No handicap
Class A 40 pt games
Class B & C 30 pts or 40 shoes
7 person classes
Contact Jerry LaBrosse to confirm 
open spots before sending entry
Once confirmed, send to:
8170 Fern Lane
Greenfield,MN 55357
Jlabro6186@aol.com
612-819-7353
alternate weather date Feb 27th


MARCH MAHEM

Saturday March 6th
Junction Bowl, Isanti
Limited to the first 20 PAID entries

2 shifts - 50 shoe games

Tournament contingent
 upon our fine Governor
 reopening the state.

Contact Shawn Warnemunde
414  11th Ave NW
Isanti, MN  55046

763-227-1804

smwarnemunde@msn.com

GREENFIELD OPEN

Saturday March 20th
Greenfield Horseshoe Club
Entry Fee $40
Limited to first 21 PAID entries

Secret format TBA with the schedule
7 person classes
Contact Jerry LaBrosse to confirm 
open spots before sending entry
Once confirmed, send to:
8170 Fern Lane
Greenfield,MN 55357
Jlabro6186@aol.com
612-819-7353
alternate weather date Mar 27th

CLANK & THUD BECKER OPEN

Saturday April 10th

Limited to the first 24 PAID entries

Entry fee $35

Entry deadline April 1st

Format TBA

Contact Brian Wipper
9184  37th St SE
 St. Cloud, MN 56304
1-320-248-4977
rbwipper@gmail.com

masks optional




Publishing Schedule for the MGSHPA Ringer Digest
January-February-March
April-May-June
July-August-September-October
State Tournament Issue
November-December

Send all digest materials to the Jerry LaBrosse  Jlabro6186@aol.com

Use these simple sign up forms to receive the Ringer Digest and  NHPA Newsline publications:
MGSHPA Executive Board                      MGSHPA Directors

President 
Rick Wright
50586 Shorewood Circle
Rush City ,Mn 55069
651-491-2404


PO Box 353
Bertha, MN 56437
218-639-4641


North Vice President
Eric Dehkes
18923 North Lake Ln
Pine City, MN  55063
(320) 420-4821
dehkes4@msn.com
 
 
South Vice President
Jeff Washburn
3479   Vivian Ave
Shoreview, MN  55126
(651) 724-7899
Jeff08@comcast.net








Ringer Digest Editor
Jerry LaBrosse
8170 Fern Lane
Greenfield,MN 55357
612-819-7353
jlabro6186@aol.com


Statistician
Josh Olson
PO Box 353
Bertha, MN 56437
218-639-4641


Webmaster
PO Box 353
Bertha, MN 56437
218-639-4641


Nominations Director 
Joe Mueller
2057 152nd Lane
Ham Lake, MN 55304
612-718-0921


Constitution and Bylaws
Helen Hawkinson
943  5th St SE
Forest Lake, MN 55025
(651) 276-2151
Hhawkinson@fwhtlaw.com


Promotion/News Media Director
Michelle Foard
5228 Pierce St NE
Fridley, MN  55421
(612)388-3884
lynx3921@aol.com


Junior Promotions Director
April Lynch
25679 Friesland Ct
Wyoming, MN 55902
651-226-7970


Communications Director
Jerry LaBrosse
8170 Fern Lane
Greenfield, MN 55357
612-819-7353
jlabro6186@aol.com





About Us
MGSHPA's Ringer Digest is the official newsletter of the Minnesota Gopher State Horseshoe Pitchers' Association. It is free to members of the MGSHPA and other interested parties. Changes of email address can be sent directly to the editor     Jlabro6186@aol.com

All submissions to the Ringer Digest Editor is subject to editing, available space, and must be received by the 10th of the month preceding the date of issue.
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