We are men who lead, serve, protect and defend, whether we are giving out Coats for Kids, donating wheelchairs, lending a helping hand in disaster relief efforts, supporting local pregnancy centers or providing top-quality financial products.
Twenty-seven Knights reported for work duty at the concession at Valley Ridge Park this past weekend. On Friday evening Ray Rivera and Jesse Zuniga worked during the home run hitting contest for the kids playing in the “stamp-out-cancer” tournament. On Saturday morning Jesus Medina, Frank Salazar and Peter Perta began the day and at 10am Hector Rubio and Joel Lopez arrived. Now many of you might think that is too many people working; but that was not the case. Everyone was extremely busy the whole time. Customers came in droves about 9:00am and the line continued for hours. It nearly kept one Knight busy just grilling hamburgers. The second shift arrived at 11:30am which included Phil and Hazel Holifield, Russell Gully, Adan and Max Luna, and Marc Evans. Again the customer line never seemed to go away until the rain and lightning came around 1:30pm. Business was intermittent from then until the games resumed about 4pm. There were two tournament held on this weekend – the “stamp-out-cancer” tournament and the End of the Year league tournament. When the rains came the league tournament was stopped for the day while the “stamp-out-cancer” tournament resumed after the rain. The closing Knights arrived at 4pm – Mike Fitzgerald and Moises Martinez. Little did they realize that the games had been delayed for 2 ½ hours; which meant it would be late at night before all the games would be completed. Did Mike and Moises complain? No, they did not and worked until about 9:30pm, when we finally closed the concession stand.
On Sunday morning Miguel and Ben Hernandez, Zach Cazares, Jesus Montelongo arrived and it was Saturday all over again. Even with the arrival of Trevor Edwards and Billy Callender at 10am, we were hard pressed to keep up with customers who were lined up for food and drinks. Morris Curly, Eduardo Torres, and Gonzalo Aillon arrived at 11:30am and it was non-stop until their shift ended at 4pm. When James Smith arrived at 4pm for the closing shift, it was obvious that he and I would not be able to keep up with customer demands. Morris Curly and Trevor Edwards stayed as long as they could, but Eduardo Torres stayed until the end of the tournament – about 7:30pm.
Whew – what a couple days it was. A special thanks to Hazel Holifield who held her own on the counter taking order and operating the credit card machine. Special thanks to Max Luna who helped in a number of places. And, for sure, thanks to Eduardo Torres who, without hesitation, worked two shifts so that James and I wouldn’t be covered up. We sold a lot of everything we had on the menu. We sold out of turkey legs, grilled and sold about 260 cheeseburger/hamburgers, made about 230 nachos, sold 240 hot dogs and about 120 Earl Campbell sausages, served about 450 bottles of Powerade, 200 cans of Dr. Pepper, 300+ bottles of water, about 150 snow cones and about 420 serving of French fries (just ask Billy Callender how fast French fries sold), plus other drinks and lots of chips and candy. For those of you that like numbers. there were a total of 54 games played with gross sales approaching $9,500. 00. Everyone should be proud of being part of such a gigantic undertaking and, for sure, the council thanks all of you. Great Job.
