The Yacht Club dining room was packed with tennis players, pickleball players, spouses, and even several golfers for the annual Horseshoe Bay Resort Tennis Banquet on Sunday, February 23. With the popularity of pickleball and the growing number of Resort members playing the sport, both tennis and pickleball were evenly represented by the crowd at this year's event, with many folks actively playing both sports.
After a lively cocktail hour with free champagne, attendees dined on a tasty Italian dinner. HSB Resort's Director of Tennis Michelle Stallard led the gathering in a moment of respect remembering two cherished members of the local tennis community who recently passed away – Claire Edwards and Harold Kirstein. Neither Claire nor Harold can ever be replaced, but they will always be remembered by their many tennis friends.
Then everyone's favorite emcee, Gil Blount, tickled the crowd with another of his creative monologues. Having entertained audiences at 13 prior tennis banquets, one might think Blount would run out of humorous subjects to tackle. But he delivered another winner, focusing this year on certain “firsts” in his life, beginning with the first time he met his wife, Inger Lise, on an oil rig off Norway's coast. Blount ended with a story about a mythical character, his “Uncle Archie, a black man who graduated from Harvard with an Electrical Engineering degree, but couldn't find a job.” Eventually this “Uncle Archie” received a call offering him a job “electrifying” the bathrooms at a native American community. Which made him, in Blount's words, “the first person to wire a head for reservations!” Groans, laughter, and another ovation for the popular storyteller!
Blount is a hard act to follow, but four time Southwest Conference Champ Stallard hit the right note by honoring another pillar of the HSB tennis world, Ann Wright, for all she does for the tennis and pickleball players at the Resort. The raucous applause for Wright was a perfect segue into the fun door prize drawing orchestrated each year by Stallard and her crew. This year, 25 door prizes were donated by a variety of local businesses including the Resort and its tennis, pickleball and golf professionals, Ace Hardware, Babolat, Bayside Market, the Bottle Shop, Enchanted Rock Vodka, HEB, Julie's Cocina, Spicewood Vineyards, Stone House Vineyard, and Tito's Vodka. The prizes ranged from gift cards, to adult beverage baskets, to dinners and vacation packages, to professional tennis, pickleball, and golf lessons.
Resort members who want to get back into tennis or learn pickleball should contact the Tennis Pro Shop to find out about clinics, lessons or league play. Stallard and her assistants, Paul Isurin and Israel Castillo, or pickleball coach Bill Dunn, can set up a program or introduce you to compatible players to jump start your game this spring. And as a member of the tennis and pickleball family, you'll get an invitation to next year's banquet, which might just expand its name to the Tennis, Pickleball and Golfers Banquet!
