MINNESOTA HORSESHOE PITCHERS'

Ringer Digest

April/May/June 2023

A Charter of the NHPA

Official Publication of the Minnesota Gopher State Horseshoe Pitchers' Association

MGSHPA RESOURCES

Explore any of these links

2023 NHPA World Tournament

Lansing, Michigan

July 17-29

Entry Deadline May 15th 2023

Obituary - Ken Greenlee

Salute to Bob Knudtson

It is with great sadness to announce that Bob Knudtson of Columbia Heights, Mn has passed at 90. Bob was a long time member of the Fridley Club and then moved to Brooklyn Park when Fridley shut down. Bob passed with his beloved wife Marlene by his side. No funeral was held per Bob's wishes. Bob was laid to rest at Ft. Snelling Cemetery on March 21st 2023 with full military honors. Bob served in the Air Force for 4 years and was stationed in Korea, Japan and the US. Bob grew up in SW Minnesota. After the military Bob's trade was a Boiler Maker and was a foreman of a crew. Bob and Marlene married Nov 22, 1975. They had a hobby farm and raised sheep and miniature horses. Bob started pitching horseshoes in 1991. Bob had a real passion for pitching. He loved pitching in Leagues, Tournaments, State and World. Bob Knudtson has won the Mn Elders State championships 3 times. He also won a few Class Championships at World. Bob was inducted into the Mn Hall of Fame in 2012. He also won the Frank Stinson award as well. Bob and Marlene have wintered in Florida for over 20 years and played down there as well. Bob signed up for league in 2022 and attended the Spring meeting, but wasn't able to play due to his knees. 

Please keep Marlene in your prayers. 

From the Editor

By Jerry LaBrosse

I hope you all had a healthy and happy off-season. Soon we will be resuming our favorite summer sport. Let's all make an effort to interest a friend or family member to give pitching shoes a try. Growing this sport relies on a grass roots effort to recruit.

One of our main communication tools is this Ringer Digest, and the NHPA Newsline publication. It is very simple and safe to sign up your name and email address to receive these free publications.I can assure you that Constant Contact will never sell or share your address with anyone, and you won't receive any solicitations.

I call on all of our league directors to make sure all of your club members are receiving these valuable promotion tools, and to share them with their friends and family. We need to get the word out about our sport, and this is the best thing we have. Our Promotion Director Michelle Foard does a fantastic job along with Josh Olson in sharing our sport on social media. These tools are great, but promotion starts with each of us.

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Constitution/By-Laws Director

by Sue Pierce



Greetings Horseshoe Players.  Another season is upon us. Hopefully everyone is dug out of the snow and ready for the summer. Ray & I got a chance to go to Arizona again this year and get a little head start on our members and get to pitch some horseshoes in February outside in the sunshine. We are looking forward to another season of horseshoes and fun with the Hibbing Club Members. We are saddened and will miss two of our avid players with the passing of Virgil Anderson and John Pierce. We know that they have already had some hotly contested games up there!!  

I have a proposal for a Constitution change to Article VII and a couple of BY-Law changes. Please review these items and they will be discussed at the Spring meeting. Encourage everyone to get out and pitch horseshoes as often as they can and to promote the sport. 

Proposal: 

Current language:

Constitution, Article VII (Election of Officers)  (Page 4)

   Candidates for MGSHPA office must announce their candidacy in writing or email and received by the President and the Ringer Digest Editor no later than June 1st. The officers elected by a majority vote of the regular members present and entitled to vote at the annual meeting of the Association shall hold office for three-year terms (no maximum of consecutive terms). The election of officers, to installed at the conclusion of the regular annual meeting, shall be held on alternating years as follows.:

              a.  President

              b.  Secretary/Treasurer/Membership Director

              c.  North & South Vice President  

Proposed change:

   Candidates for MGSHPA office must announce their candidacy in writing or email and received by the President and the Ringer Digest Editor no later than June 1st. Incumbents, however, must announce their candidacy in the same manner by March 1st. The officers elected by a majority vote of the regular members present and entitled to vote at the annual meeting of the Association shall hold office for three-year terms (no maximum of consecutive terms). The election of officers shall be held on alternating years as follows:

              a. President shall be elected starting in the year 2024.

              b. Secretary/Treasurer/Membership Director shall be elected starting in the year 2025.

              c. North & South Vice President shall be elected starting in the year 2023.

              d. Newly elected officers shall officially take office on January 1 of the year following their election.

BYLAWS CHANGES:

Bylaw, Sec. 1 Dues (page 7)

Current language:

  2. Head of household $13.00 (thirteen dollars).

Proposed language:

  2.Members over 18 (eighteen) $13.00 (thirteen dollars).

Another change to the By-Laws is to change the word "Ladies" to "Women". The word "Ladies" appears in the By-Laws 5 times in reference to the division. In the State Tournament there is a "Womens Division". I propose we change the word "Ladies" to "Women" wherever it appears in the By-Laws.  

Secretary/Treasurer

By Janet Roubinek

Happy Spring! About 120 members have already renewed their annual membership. If you need any help, send me a message through sec.treas@minnesotahorseshoes.com, and I will answer as soon as possible. Members have contacted me about address, division, email address, and phone number changes.

As a reminder, if you are renewing or signing-up a junior or cadet pitcher, please contact me. I am able to do that for free. If you use e-shoes for juniors or cadets, you will not be reimbursed.

One last thing, if your league needs help with membership sign-up during your meeting, send me an e-mail with time, date, and place. If I am available, I’ll make the drive to help you out.

South Vice President

by Jeff Washburn

Greetings to all MGSHPA pitchers, families, and friends. This is always an exciting time of the year for me, and I hope it is for many of you, too.  Spring is here, the weather in MN is warming up although slowly, snow is melting but not fast enough, and horseshoes are right around the corner. I have talked to several clubs recently and it is good to hear that some league meetings have already taken place and others are in the process of being scheduled soon.  A big thanks to all those in club leadership positions as your efforts are what helps support and drive our MGSHPA success. I would ask all horseshoe pitchers who belong to a club for weekly league play, or pitch in tournaments, to take a minute this summer and thank those that work tirelessly to help make your leagues and tournaments a success.

MGSHPA has a full complement of horseshoe tournaments again this year, so I would encourage all of you to plan your pitching schedules to include some of the many fine tournament opportunities across our state.  I have already been marking those tournaments on the calendar that I plan on participating in. For those who might want to take a horseshoe tournament road trip, as I have done over the past years venturing to Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Wyoming, consider looking at neighboring states and see if there is a tourney that might be of interest.  It could be a very enjoyable trip.

 If you haven’t already done so, now is a great time to help MGSHPA by renewing your dues as this is the primary source of income for our organization.  Eshoe is available and an easy way to take care of this. Just access the MGSHPA website and click on Membership sign up and follow the prompts. You can also print a copy and mail your check to Janet Roubinek, whose address can be found on our MGSHPA website.

Another friendly reminder for all our members is to keep your ambassador hats on by seeking out and encouraging new prospective pitchers to join our great association.  I look forward to seeing many of you on the courts this summer.  “Three on Three”

North Vice President

By Rory Pierce

Hello MGSHPA a quick word from your North-Vice President.

I hope the winter months were not too hard on any of you, and you are eagerly awaiting the Horseshoe season to get underway! Our league in Hibbing usually gets underway around the second week of May. I am very excited to get to pitching. As always lets make it one of each of our goals to try and sign up at least one new member. If you have any recruiting strategies that have worked for you in the past that you would like to share by all means contact me or one of the officers and we will share it in the digest and with our individual clubs as well. If you have concerns related to your club or related to the MGSHPA please contact me or your respected officer and we will do everything we can to get the issues resolved as quickly as possible. Take a moment and check out the MGSHPA website that Lori York has spent countless hours on, and find a tournament in your area or one that you would like to attend. The Toby Neuenschwander memorial open will be held on June 24^th this year so mark your calendars for that one. Last year the payouts were very remarkable and we hope to carry that into this year as well. With that being said get your shoes dusted off, cleaned up and repainted. Horseshoe season is soon to be upon us and I can already hear the ringing of the stakes! Good luck to all and can’t wait to see you all out there on the courts.

Promotion and News Media

By Michelle Foard

Happy Spring Everyone! 

 Spring meetings will be happening this month. Brooklyn Park is having our spring meeting on April 17th. We play Mon and Tues nights at 6pm. Please let me know if anyone is interested in joining our club. 

 Don’t hesitate to ask people to join. Put up a flyer at the local gas station or post on the community page on FB. Ask friends, co-workers, relatives and neighbors.  

 On Tik Tok news I went live during the Pot of Gold Tournament. I had around 59,000 viewers throughout the 3 different lives I had. I also went live during Tues night league in Becker which had 13,800 views. Of the top 10 viewers, watching times were from 38 minutes to just over 2 hours. So I am getting people who watch most of the livesand many new followers. Some of you may have heard the government wants to ban Tik Tok in the US unless China agrees to sell the company. I hope Tik Tok doesn’t get banned. I have worked so many hours on building this account. I do actually get people who reach out to find out where they can play. 

 As always if the tournament directors can send me pictures and results of your tournament that would be great. I post on Facebook for others to see the results. If your tournament isn’t filling up let me know and I can make a post on FB. If you know of any non-sanctioned tournaments I can post that as well. 

 April 29th Ham Lake Lanes is having a non-sanctioned tournament. Bring your own partner. Sign up at 10am start 11am. Cost is $10. Brooklyn Park is having our tournament June 11th. 

  I will be going to Team World again this year. I am gonna be the 5th person on a team so I can spend a lot of time doing videos and going live. I will be posting on social media to keep you all updated. Super excited for this!

 So let’s have a great spring into summer! 

POT OF GOLD TOURNAMENT WINNERS

Helen's Corner

By Helen Hawkinson

Hello everyone. Its Spring – well it doesn’t quite feel like it yet, but it’s coming! Forest Lake HS Leagues will have their league meeting on Sunday, April 23, at noon at the FL VFW. Anyone interested in pitching this year in the league should attend. The leagues are starting on Monday May 15 (singles) and May 18 (doubles) starting at 6:30 pm. It is helpful to arrive at 6:00 pm on league nights to turn the pits and get ready to pitch/practice etc. We had a lot of fun last year and had a great turnout (32 pitchers/16 teams) and hope we even have more this year. It’s really a 2 for 1 league as you can play on Mondays and Thursdays for the same league fee. It is a great way to meet new people and have fun outside in the fresh air. We will be getting the courts ready after the meeting so wear work style clothes and bring gloves. Thanks and see you soon!  If you have any questions you can contact me (651-276-2151) or Joe Mueller (612-718-0921).

Tournament Recaps at the Bertha Pitching Pavilion Jan/Feb Tournaments

By Josh Olson

Pat Stumpf wins Bertha #1 in January and Josh Olson wins Bertha Winter #2 in February after a 3-way Play-Off. 

Bertha Winter #1 in January 

We had a Full schedule of 21 pitchers through-out the day Saturday the 14^th for the 1^st tournament of the 2023 season in Minnesota. We had some very taste soup and sandwiches that my mom prepared and from what I can recall we had very good weather for January. All 3 shifts had 7 pitchers, everyone would get a bye to get a break in the action to have some soup and use the restroom, the top 3 in the morning class C consisted of Jeff Lawrence who recently made the jump to 30ft, Carolyn Brigner and Tim her husband took the 1^st and 2^nd Honors, both were tied 5-1 but Tim won the tie breaker so Carolyn would come in 2^nd. The middle shift had Class B action, Tom Prokop had a very good tournament pitching over 50%, Al Woida a local club member took 2^nd place and Rick Wright took 3^rd place over the tie with Paul Anderson from North Dakota. So, we get to the Main event, Class A would pitch 40-point games, Pat had a great day of pitching, she had a high game of 70% and went 6-0 for the day, Josh Olson took 2^nd place with a record of 5-1 and Jerry Werk took 3^rd place going 3-3.  

Bertha Winter #2 in February  

We would see a good chunk of the same pitchers again for the Feb tournament, we did fill up again which was great, we also had exceptional weather for February, I think it got up to close to 40 degrees that day which was a blessing, you never know in Minnesota, I was thankful since I know it is a bit of a drive for majority that make the trip! Class C winners, we had a 3-way tie for 3^rd place, with Rick Wright, Larry Brabec and Bruce Swenson, tie breaker this month was over average, and Bruce took home 3^rd place throwing closest to his entry average for the day. 2^nd place went to Carolyn Brigner, she must really like finishing 2^nd in Bertha ha-ha. Our Class C winner would go own to have a very good day of pitching, Jeff Thompson from Alexandria would go 5-1 for the day and would win the tie breaker against Carolyn throwing about 12% over his entry average and having a great start to his 30ft career pitching a 40% tournament for the day, Jeff is planning on going to Lansing for World so he will be getting his tournaments in to make sure he qualifies, congrats Jeff! Class B would have a few familiar faces and some new ones, we had a 4-way tie for 2^nd place in Class B between Tom Prokop, Pet Heltunen, Lance Van Whye, and new sanctioned pitcher Harvey Burkman. Harvey would have just a little better day than lance pitching about 2% over his entry average to Lance’s .50% over average, Lance would take 3^rd Place and Harvey would take 2^nd in the tie breaker. Tim Brigner would take home Class B honor’s after having a great day of pitching as well, he pitched 12% over his entry average and I believe had a career high game of 57.50%, I suspect Tim will have many more of those games as he continues to transition at 30ft, congrats to Tim! Class A was another one for the books in Bertha for the Winter. The top 3 pitchers would all finish the day going 5-1 for the day, as tournament director It slipped my mind to announce the tie breaker for the class, I like to keep it old school majority of the time in my A-Class for competition purposes, breaking down the last couple games, Janet and Pat would face off around game 5 or 6 and Pat would take the win against Janet giving Janet her first lost, Janet would go onto playing against Josh the 6^th game and would win after going 60 shoes and having quite the battle with the 2 State Champs, Janet would win 44-39, Janet pitched 63.33% to Josh’s 60%, for those keeping track at home, that would be Josh’s first lost, and Janet also only had one loss, and Pat would be undefeated going into the last game, Mark Smith would face Janet, Josh and Pat would face each other, must be something about 40point games but if you ask me you are never out of the game until your opponent reaches that 40point mark which makes it very exciting and competitive. Janet would have her high game of the day against Mark with a 66% game and would finish 5-1, Josh and Pat would go 72 shoes and Josh would edge out Pat 41-38, Pat would out ringer Josh 45 to 44, Pat would average 62.50 to Josh’s 61.11%. So now Josh, Pat and Janet are all 5-1 at the end of the day. Pat and Janet agreed to playing off the tie (THANK YOU both Janet and Pat), we agreed to do 40 shoes or 40-point games whichever comes first. Janet and Josh would face off first with Pat waiting to face the winner, Josh would average 67.50 against Janet in a 40-shoe game and take the win back from Janet. Josh and Pat would go 40 shoes as well and Josh would have another 67.50% game against Pat and would take home the 1^st place Honors and the silver patch!  ted time only" or "only 7 remaining"!

Upsala Winter League Recap

By Janet Larson

Our Upsala league finished 10 weeks of regular season play on March 13th, and we were fortunate not to have to cancel a single week due to weather. We had the courts full almost every week with 16 pitchers and an additional 6 subs. Some of the subs pitched as many games as the regular pitchers. Everyone participated in the same round robin rotation, using count all and a handicap system. We also used a win/loss percentage to keep things as even as possible for some that had warm weather vacation plans. Our regular season winners were Pat Stumpf, 1st; Jerry Zyvoloski, 2nd; Tim Brigner, 3rd. High Game awards went to Carolyn Brigner (100), Pat Stumpf (97), Al Nicholson (97), Chuck Betterman (95), and Ginger O’Brian (94). High 4 game series awards went to Myron VanderWeyst (353), Jerry Werk (344), Tim Brigner (342), Walt Beneke (337), and Don Waldoch (333). Tony Ohman received the Sportsmanship award, and while Christy Schilling is not new to horseshoes, she was new to this league and received the Rookie of the Year award. 

We held our end of season tournament action on March 20th, dividing into 4 classes and then having a playoff round robin with the winners of each class. The Class winners were Janet Larson (A), Jerry Zyvoloski (B), Gary Kirckof (C) and Brian Wipper (D). All season this league provided very good competition and that held true in these final rounds as well. In the end Janet was declared the Tournament Champ, going undefeated, but winning two of the final games by just a single point. We then celebrated the season with a meal at a local restaurant, and made plans to return next January. Finally, to Myron and Linda VanderWeyst for organizing this group and keeping the stats, we extend a huge Thank You!  

Janet L., Carolyn B., Pat S., Myron V., Annette G., Brian W., Jerry Z., Tim B., Jerry W., Chuck B., Don W., Roger L., Gary K., Tony O.

Regular Season winners, Pat Stumpf 1st, Jerry Zyvoloski 2nd, Tim Brigner 3rd.

Janet Larson, Class A; Jerry Zyvoloski, Class B

Brian Wipper, Class D; Gary Kirckof, Class C

Upsala League Directors

Myron and Linda VanderWeyst

My Travels this past February

By Josh Olson

Let me start off by saying that the game of Horseshoes is definitely just a game, but its not just about the game at the end of the day. Its about the memories and the people that you get to meet along the way to those Tournaments each and every day. I am very fortunate to have a great work/life balance in my life right now. This past month I traveled to the Kansas City Missouri area as well as Mesa, Arizona for a couple Horseshoe Tournaments. The first tournament was on February 4th in Liberty, MO which is about a hour or so away from Kansas City. I took some time to go and look at the electronic equipment that we use for the World Tournaments with NHPA Sec/Treas Jim Kinney. Jim and his wife Beth opened their house up for me to stay with them over the weekend and I really appreciated their hospitality the entire trip. While down in that area I took in a Horseshoe Tournament. The Don Harris Arena in Liberty, Missouri is a premiere arena in the Missouri area and they run tournaments through-out the winter every other weekend. I got the bug in Stan Grigg’s about the possibility of getting him and another fellow Missouri pitcher Michael Bowman together to pitch in the next up coming Tournament in Liberty since they both do not live that far from the arena. I guess I sparked Stans interest and he made a few calls to some other 40ft pitchers and we had a ALL 40ft group at the Tournament. We had a good group of 7 pitchers from around the area, 6 Missouri pitchers and one Minnesota pitcher. The facility was top notch, Greg Craven and his brother Brady alongside with Dee McIntire they all run a great facility in Missouri. I had a blast pitching with everyone in the group, I even managed to take 3rd place against some really tough competition. Missouri has a very tough group of pitchers that come out of Missouri and they sure did not disappoint. Stan Griggs took 1st place, Michael Bowman finished 2nd and I took 3rd place. If you want to pitch somewhere in the Kansas City MO area, I would highly recommend visiting the Don Harris Arena in Liberty Missouri. 

The Valley of the SUN

The valley of the sun Horseshoe tournament is one of the longest running if not longest running NHPA Sanctioned event, this year marked 65 years. I have always wanted to pitch in that tournament ever since I started pitching at a higher level. The Valley of the Sun Tournament has a great reputation of creating the classes based off of distances and not so much mixed classes like you normally would see at a local tournament in the state/Charter that you pitch in. Towards the end of December I had to make up my mind if I was going to try and go this year or not. There were a few factors to consider, time off from work was one, I had gone to the Kansas City area just 2 weeks prior to this tournament and now I was taking a couple days off for that trip, and then the other key factor was traveling down to Arizona. I started looking at flights to see if I could find something reasonably priced. I ended up finding something and then decided to put my entry in the mail and then purchased my plane ticket and then the rest was history. I boarded my flight Friday the night before competition started, everyone who pitched in the Valley of the Sun pitched for 2 days, I pitched Saturday and Sunday so it worked out a little better schedule wise to taking time off. Men’s Class A was made up of 10 pitchers from all over the United States. Matt Fuller, Don Davis both from Washington state. Jacob Fimbres, Russ Watkins and Mike Payne from Arizona, Dave Lane from California, Ken Jones and Rollen Walthall both from New Mexico and Joe Rossi from Colorado and myself made up the 10 pitchers in the group. I have pitched against about half of these guys over the years at past World Tournaments and they are all very tough competitors. It was a great tournament, it was great to enjoy some nice warm weather in the month of February that is for sure. It was sunny and 75 degrees all weekend long. The top 5 made it into the money for the Tournament. I took 5th place, Don Davis took 4th, Dave Lane 3rd, Matt Fuller 2nd and Jacob defended and has won the Men’s Class A group 3 years in a row I believe. We had 3 Minnesota pitchers participating in the Valley of the Sun this year, Bruce Henderson, Robert Ciaciura and myself, I did not get a chance to see either one of them pitch since the tournament ran for about 6 days total but you can check out the full results of the Tournament on the eShoe website and find the Valley of the Sun tournament results. If you need a excuse to get out of the cold and want to pitch in a fun tournament I would recommend the Valley of the Sun in a heartbeat!

Alexandria League Updates

By Janet Larson

We will be having our Spring Meeting on Wednesday April 19th in the Douglas County Library meeting room at 6pm, new members are welcome. If you are interested in learning more about our league, but cannot attend this meeting, please contact Janet at 218-731-5987 to get more information. We pitch on Wednesday evenings at the Curtis Felt Memorial Park and welcome pitchers of all abilities.  

Now for a much delayed 2022 Season Update. Our regular season got a late start due to rain and waiting for farmers to get crops in. Then shortly after we did start, Brian Hoppe lost a family member followed by his team partner, Jerry Werk, needing emergency surgery. We happened to have an odd number of teams with each team rotating through a bye week. Several of us opted to sub in for Jerry on our bye weeks and we managed to complete the season with Jerry and Brian never actually pitching together as a team. Yet somehow the regular season winners were the “team” of Jerry Werk and Brian Hoppe in 1st place. That is the definition of sportsmanship and why I love the horseshoe family. Gene Eitreim and Randy Werk finished in 2nd place. Our singles tournament was divided into two classes, the winner of Class A was Janet Larson, Gene Eitreim earned 2nd place. Class B was won by Chuck Betterman, with Marshal Swenson getting 2nd place. Our double elimination playoff Champions were the team of Mike Wegener and Marshal Swenson, with Jerry Werk and Brian Hoppe finishing 2nd (this time they actually did pitch as a team). Our 2022 season was celebrated on October 9th with a potluck and awards. Some of the other awards that were handed out included Gary Boots getting most improved, dropping his handicap 6 points from 34 to 28. Janet Larson earned High Game, 110 points, and high ringer average, 51.05%. Tina Matter earned High Game Over Average with a game of 30.39 points over her average. Jordan Reese was our Rookie of the Year and Bruce Swenson was voted the Sportsmanship award. I believe all of these pitchers will be back this year attempting to reclaim their titles or possibly earn an even better one. Please feel free to join us and challenge them in their efforts.  

2022 Regular season winners Randy Werk (and Mike Wegener) 2nd place, Jerry Werk (and Brian Hoppe) 1st place. 

2022 Singles Tournament winners Janet Larson 1st place Class A, Chuck Betterman 1st place Class B, Marshal Swenson 2nd place Class B. 

Janet Larson (High Game, High Ringer Average), Gary Boots (Most Improved).

2022 Double Elimination Playoff Champions, the team of Mike Wegener and Marshal Swenson.