| PRESIDENT’S PAGE |
The best of the best
Agents, carriers and staff team up to make
Kansas shine during national championship
SUEANN SCHULTZ
KAIA President
L
ast month, KAIA hosted the Kansas Trusted
Choice® Junior Golf Qualifier at Colbert Hills
in Manhattan. This is the qualifying event
for the Trusted Choice® Big “I” National Golf
Championship – which was hosted this year by KAIA at
Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson. This column
is dedicated to the BEST OF THE BEST – the members
of KAIA, the KAIA staff, the national staff, our awesome
sponsoring carrier partners and the 159 outstanding elite
junior golfers who participated in this Championship
event!
First and foremost, THANK YOU to every single person
who was involved. Kansas could not have been the host
without all of the outstanding volunteers who dedicated
countless hours to assure our hosted tournaments were
well run, on time (even waiting out rain in Kansas in the
summer!), and successful. While KAIA has hosted a state
qualifier for many years, this was only the second time
that Kansas has hosted the National Championship. It
has been at least four years in the planning, and every
last detail was discussed, planned for and carried out with
efficient and effective execution. When the weather tossed
the team a curve ball, the team adapted and hit it out of
the park.
Our volunteers were at the course before dawn until well
after dark for six days, taking care of everything from
course layout, filling water coolers, fixing divots, driving
participants to and from the airport, housing, scoring,
spotting, finding balls in the gunch, meals, you name it,
it was done. I don’t think I’ve seen another event where
the volunteers dedicated so much time and energy to
assure that the young people who traveled to Kansas had a
spectacular experience, regardless of their golf game.
Lee Gleason, Jim Runnebaum, Bob Wood and KAIA staff
liaison Joan Sutton – was absolutely stellar, fabulous and
fantastic in every way.
Perhaps one of the best sto ɥ