I’ve long marveled at the charity poker tournament. Here you have one of law enforcement’s favorite vice targets repurposed to help the kids, help the volunteer fire department, help the church.
Well, Youth Home (the kids) is holding its third charity poker tournament Saturday at Next Level Events. Registration is at 3 p.m.; play commences about 5. The buy in is $50 for $2,500 in chips, or $75 for $5,000. Winner take all.
What? Winner takes a $2,000 package from Family Leisure, retailer of outdoor patio equipment, tubs, pools and pool tables?
Chrissy Chatham is development director of Youth Home, a private psychiatric treatment center for emotionally troubled adolescents.
BA: Why can’t the winner just take the winnings?
CC: Hmm, because that’s illegal?
Ah, back to that law enforcement thing.
Well, the $2,000 package donated by Family Leisure certainly takes the edge off that bait-and-switch, and Chatham promises there’s genuine Vegas-level excitement out there on the floor. For those who don’t enter the tourney, there are casino games like roulette, craps and blackjack with their own cache of prizes, including shades and handbags from Dillard’s, guided duck hunts and gift certificates to several local restaurants.
BA: Who are the ringers? I mean, who’ve you got from the World Series of Poker?
CC: There [are] players of all skill levels, [but] the word in the poker world is that charity tournaments are not on the radars of most professional poker players because … it would be like getting Tiger Woods to play golf against me. Like, that’s not gonna be fun for anybody.
For what it’s worth, the nonprofit has been rounding up enough prizes - more than $10,000 worth - that the players and gamblers don’t feel like they’re playing for nothing. Of course, there’s hors d’oeuvres, wine and beer for their money, too.
“The past couple of years the poker players have all been really great. They’ve all been happy and enjoyed it, and the casino players too have such a blast.”
SPOT, ON HIGH PROFILE?
Every so often we get a pitch for a cover profile that bears repeating. In other words, the pitch itself is story-worthy - maybe it’s hilarious, or inspiring. This one’s both.
Out there in the capital city there is a 4 ½ -year-old Little Rock border collie, a rescued dog from Little Rock Animal Village, that is regularly enlisted to smell metastatic cancer in humans, is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog, and is currently in the running for The American Humane Association 2013 Hero Dog of the Year. So says a woman who called me two weeks ago.
(The connection was terrible. There are parts I missed.)
BA: Are you suggesting a dog could be a High Profile cover story?
Caller: Yeah, I thought it might be kind of cute.
BA: Hmm -.
Caller: Yeah, I do think that!
I confessed I didn’t catch the caller’s name. Donna Waugh, she said, though I heard “Small” and asked her to spell the last name.
BA: Oh, Waugh, like the author.
DW: [Something, something] distant crazy relative.
BA: Wait, you’re related to Evelyn Waugh?
DW: Yes. Waugh. Far, far, far distant, [but] absolutely.
Donna Waugh is president of the Arkansas Search Dog Association.
BA: What’s your dog’s name?
DW: His name is John D … after Rockefeller.
BA: Your dog’s name is John D after the industrialist John D. Rockefeller?
If you’re keeping track, you have a dog named after the industrialist and, literally, after the author.
John D is not her only trained search-and-rescue dog, but he may be her most memorable. On the American Humane Society Hero Dog Awards website Waugh has contributed a short profile in which she tells the sad but remarkable episode of John D’s locating by smell the two-day old body of a drowned boy. John D is also a member of the Ovarian Cancer Detection Study being conducted by Dr. Alexander Burnett at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ division of gynecological oncology - that’s dogs smelling cancer in women.
So her pitch is, if this canis were homo sapien, I’d be calling her for the story.
Certainly if this were a man smelling women’s cancer at UAMS, someone from the paper would be calling.
“I know [it’s unusual], but what I think you’re going to find is people are nutty about this dog. I’m getting people from around the world. I’m getting TV producers following this dog on Facebook. Cesar Milan is following this dog!”
John D the border collie is, like fellow Arkansans Kris Allen or Cody Belew before him, making his way through the cutthroat preliminary rounds of the national talent contest. He’s in the search and rescue division. It’s decided by popular vote, so consider visiting HeroDogAwards. org/vote and casting one for John D. If he wins, he’ll go to Hollywood for the awards gala taping Oct. 5, to air on the Hallmark Channel on Nov. 7.
At which point I’ll likely not revisit my opposition to profiling our American (Dog) Idol before our American (Human) Idol winner - any such profile requires a long interview; now how’s that going to work? - but go get ’em, John D.
Go get ’em, boy.
High Profile, Pages 33 on 07/07/2013