Cornelia Wallace: Sometimes just being Debra Dion Krischke: You would be hard
first at something makes you a pioneer. pressed to find a woman that has done
Such is the case with Cornelia Wallace, more in and for paintball than Debra
wife of the Alabama Governor, George Dion Krischke. In 1991 she launched the
Wallace, the first female ever to play a International Amateur Open (known in
game of paintball. As many reading this its first year as the California Magnum
may know, the first –ever game of paintball Amateur Open), an event that happened
took place on June 27, 1981 in Henniker, yearly in western Pennsylvania for 16 years.
New Hampshire. The lesser known The IAO, as it was known, was the one
second game ever played happened in event every year that literally everyone
Wilcox County, that was anyone in paintball attended.
A l a b a m a , Although this is how most in paintball
home
of have come to know Debra, she got her
R o n n i e start in paintball long before the IAO. As
Simpkins, one public relations director for the National
of the twelve
players from Survival Game in the early 1980s, Debra
that original was the face of the first paintball company
game. Game in the world. In the first three years of the
number two game’s existence she was also the face of
was set up by paintball, appearing on literally all of the
the
original afternoon television talk shows watched
founders Bob by millions of Americans at that time in
Gurnsey, Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel response to the game’s early popularity.
with the sole purpose of seeing if the Debra is also the founder of Three Rivers
game had a broad enough interest to try Paintball in Cranberry, Pennsylvania and
to launch as a national game company. she was one of the first handful of women
This led the group to invite several to play after Cornelia Wallace in 1981.
women to play. In the end the notoriously
adventurous Cornelia Wallace would be
late Bob Gurnsey, Debra Dion Krischke & Gino
the only female to accept the invitation. The
Postorivo at the IAO
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