Latest / Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries / Episode 23. Dave Vice Memorial Sporting Clays Shoot
Transcript
- 0:00And we are back at the Grand Lodge annual communication we have with us now.
- 0:07Roger McNair former, uh, board chair of Minnesota Masonic Charities, and he's here to promote an event that has, uh, grown in popularity and success over the last few years.
- 0:20Also, join us as, uh, Marcus Mueller, who is our development associate for Masonic Charities in Northern Minnesota.
- 0:27He's got the coolest voice of anyone that we've, uh, done a podcast with.
- 0:31So enjoy that.
- 0:32Welcome gentlemen.
- 0:33Thank you.
- 0:34And, uh, thank you very much.
- 0:36Tell us a little bit, Roger, about this, event that you've, uh, that you've been putting on.
- 0:42I, I must say that I myself have participated in the event a number of.
- 0:46And I will tell you about what an adventure that was.
- 0:50It was an adventure.
- 0:51Of course, John not growing up with firearms was a little overwhelmed and under underprivileged, just think under, under duress too.
- 1:00I was under duress.
- 1:01I, I kind of forced him to do it, but he made a good showing.
- 1:05He came out and he helped fund some, some of our donations to the Masonic Children's.
- 1:11And the Shrine camps for kids.
- 1:13So, which is the diversion project.
- 1:15Yeah.
- 1:15And, and when did this start?
- 1:16And it's called the Dave Vice Memorial Shoot.
- 1:21Dave Vice Memorial Sporting Plays, shoot, sporting plays.
- 1:24Shoot.
- 1:24Okay.
- 1:24It, it started 13 years ago when I got the idea of putting it together to raise money for the, um, Masonic Children's Hospital.
- 1:34Okay.
- 1:35At the University of M.
- 1:37And we put it together.
- 1:38The first year we had a decent showing.
- 1:42It was up in Pine City at Wings North and it stayed there for six years, and then we joined with Bill Vice and the Shrine Children's Clinics.
- 1:57In Twin Cities and providing diversion programming through their camps.
- 2:03Now, it was Dave Bill's dad.
- 2:05Dave was Bill's brother.
- 2:06Yeah.
- 2:06Bill's brother, okay.
- 2:08Yep.
- 2:08Dave was treated for cancer at the Masonic Cancer Cancer Center.
- 2:13Okay.
- 2:13As was Bill's dad and one of Bill's sisters.
- 2:17Okay.
- 2:17Yeah.
- 2:18They have a genetic proclivity towards.
- 2:21Cancer.
- 2:22Well, that's not fun.
- 2:23No, no.
- 2:24And so that was Bill's impetus for joining the program in the first place.
- 2:31And we've moved forward from there and added the Shrine Children's Clinics so that kids with physical disabilities as well as all the medical disabilities that are treated at Children's Masonic or Masonic Children's.
- 2:46Sure.
- 2:47I love it.
- 2:48Yeah.
- 2:48Received some funding, so over the.
- 2:51We've raised almost$300,000 Wow.
- 2:54For kids' health, and we presented both to Masonic Charities as our funnel towards Masonic Children's Hospital and through the Zurich Shrine, rod and Gun Club to the, uh, Children's camps.
- 3:10my lasting memory of participating in this event was I brought my son, Ben.
- 3:15Who had never fired a gun in his life and he showed you up big time.
- 3:20Well, what happened was is the first station that we were at had the little guy that runs a little bunny, is that what they call it?
- 3:27The little bunny?
- 3:27The rabbit?
- 3:28Yep.
- 3:28The rabbit bunny.
- 3:30It's Easter season.
- 3:31No.
- 3:32the rabbit is running across the ground and it does this little.
- 3:36And I'll never forget the very first shot that Ben took.
- 3:41He hit the rabbit and he turned around and kind of gave me this look.
- 3:46Like, what's so hard about this?
- 3:49Well, I've seen Ben hit a golf ball, so I know he is got good eye hands.
- 3:52Well, he, he can hit a golf ball.
- 3:54But let's say that, uh, he had significant beginners'.
- 3:57Because, uh, there wasn't a lot of looking back at Dad for the next few times he pulled the trigger.
- 4:02it's just such a well run program now, this year's event is when and where?
- 4:08It's April 29th, Saturday at the Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club in Pryor Lake.
- 4:14Um, registration starts at eight 30 in the morning.
- 4:17The shoot starts at 10 30.
- 4:19Lunch at no.
- 4:21Or 1230 and then we have games and raffles and whatever, trying to get more funds to promote kids health.
- 4:29Is there still room to participate?
- 4:31Yes, there is.
- 4:32Um, last year we accommodated little over 200 shooters, holy cow.
- 4:38And shooters and guests, and we were able to, Close to$40,000 last year.
- 4:44Over 30.
- 4:45Wow.
- 4:46Wonderful.
- 4:46So we're shooting for 40 this year.
- 4:49Shooting for 40.
- 4:50See what he did there?
- 4:51Yeah.
- 4:51See that?
- 4:51Very punny, very clever.
- 4:53That's like selling raffle tickets and saying you got$40 in your wallet.
- 4:57Yeah, he did that to me just the other day at lunch.
- 4:59Hey, got 40 bucks in your wallet and just happened.
- 5:03And, uh, I think he only needed to sell me$20 worth of raffle tickets, but, uh, but double your money.
- 5:09Double your money.
- 5:10Yeah.
- 5:10The, the, your chances are twice as many.
- 5:11Chances of winning are much better.
- 5:13Yeah.
- 5:13So how many spaces do you have left for this year?
- 5:15Oh, we'll take unlimited numbers.
- 5:18Almost.
- 5:18There's four sporting plays courses at.
- 5:22Uh, Minnesota Horse and Hunt 10 stations per course, and teams are, are running about five shooters and we run'em at the same time simultaneously.
- 5:36And anybody can join shooters or first timers.
- 5:39That's just fine.
- 5:40Yeah, it's, it's open to everybody.
- 5:42It's not a competition, it's a fundraiser and it's to have a good time.
- 5:46We get some of the kids from the Shrine Children's Hospital or.
- 5:52Children's Clinic.
- 5:53Clinic, yep.
- 5:54Um, that come and participate and the kids have a great time.
- 5:58I'm trying to get my grandson to help and shoot at the same time.
- 6:02So where can they find, uh, information or who do they call?
- 6:05If they want to, uh, to, to reserve a spot in the, uh, in the field, they can email vice east bethel msn.com and get, uh, All the information that they need, and we have posters, flyers up everywhere.
- 6:25So that's Vice V I C V E C E, east East Bethel, Bethel msn.com.
- 6:32msn.com, okay.
- 6:33Yeah.
- 6:34And let's get the date one more time.
- 6:35This is April 29, is that correct?
- 6:37April 29.
- 6:38Registration at eight 30.
- 6:40Shooting at 10 30 or 10 o'clock.
- 6:42I mean, I'm sorry.
- 6:43Lunch starts at 1230.
- 6:46And a fun time will be had by everybody who participates.
- 6:50Now, while we, uh, have Marcus on the, on the horn here, there's an event coming up for the, uh, the clinic.
- 6:56Not necessarily a big fundraising event, but it is indeed a, uh, a fundraising event would probably be the best way to describe it.
- 7:04That's a very good way to put it.
- 7:05A friend crazy.
- 7:05That's what I do, because we, that's what I do.
- 7:07Punny of you as well.
- 7:08Very punny.
- 7:09Yes.
- 7:11We have an open house at the clinic, uh, the Masonic Children's Clinic for Communication Disorders.
- 7:17We have over the past year, past two years tried to achieve more community awareness and the open House contributed to that.
- 7:25Last year, obviously, the children's clinic has been supported mostly by the fraternity, by Scottish Wright Masons.
- 7:32Yep.
- 7:32But last year we had, uh, more than half of the visitors and the open house.
- 7:37We're not Masons, which is important because we treat anybody in the community and once they enter the clinic and see what is done there, they are, uh, fascinated by what we have been doing for 30 years.
- 7:50So we have this open house event on May 18.
- 7:53Okay, so Thursday.
- 7:56On a traditional Scottish right night in Duluth, so we have a little bit of the roots left there still.
- 8:01Okay?
- 8:02But it's an open house from four to six.
- 8:04We will serve, uh, some light food, okay.
- 8:08And beverages.
- 8:08But the most important thing is that the clinic is open for tours so that those that haven't seen it yet are able to see the clinic and see what we do and how, as we say, Try to give children a voice.
- 8:22I, uh, I must let you know that, uh, that date I discovered yesterday is the date of my daughter's final gymnastics banquet.
- 8:32And let's just say I would be considered persona non grata if I wasn't at that event because, They do a big celebration of the, the high school seniors.
- 8:42So I will be cheering you on from, uh, from Lake Elmo.
- 8:46You're very honorably excused.
- 8:48Thank you very much.
- 8:48I appreciate it.
- 8:49Um, yeah, we're looking very much forward to it.
- 8:52It's not a fundraiser as you said.
- 8:54Um, but we would like to, it's to connect people.
- 8:56We would, we would like to connect, you know, give, give us the gift of your interest and give us the gift of your influence in the local community.
- 9:04That is what we need at this point to, uh, Groundswell of awareness for the clinic.
- 9:10And you can be certain at some point in the future, we will give people the opportunity to make the gift of their investment, of course, in the work that we do, but they can't make an investment if they don't know what's going on.
- 9:21Absolutely not, which is why we put it on for double M, triple C, D as well as for Mason children.
- 9:29So Double M, triple C D is the Minnesota Masonic Children's Clinic for Communication Disorder.
- 9:36These acronyms?
- 9:37Something like that.
- 9:38Something like that.
- 9:39It is.
- 9:39I just call it the clinic.
- 9:41The clinic.
- 9:41It's so much easier.
- 9:42But then there are so many clinics, but I live in Duluth.
- 9:45It's the clinic, so this is the clinic.
- 9:46It's the clinic for us.
- 9:47Excellent.
- 9:48Well, uh, good luck for the Dave Vice Memorial shoot.
- 9:52I will be seventh annual, And, uh, the, uh, the open house at the clinic, the clinic at the clinic on May 18th.
- 9:59Yep.
- 10:00Looking forward to that as well.
- 10:01Thank you, gentlemen.
- 10:02Thank you for having us, and off we go.
- 10:04Thank you for having us, John.