Special thanks....

[dusty27]

I wanted to recognize and thank the folks that helped put together and pull off the After the Battle: Fredericksburg event last weekend on the Slaughter Pen Farm.

Steve Wyngarden – CWPT - Steve was our person at CWPT that worked with us prior to and at the event. The CWPT dealt with the DHR and others to make sure that we had permission to use the property for what we wanted to do, at expense to the CWPT. He also smooth over a last minute issue with the county over the need for a permit to hold the event.
Douglas Garrett – Farmer – As many of you know, the event was supposed to happen in 2007, but after meeting with Mr. Garrett in August of 2007, it couldn’t. Having no knowledge of farming, I assumed that all crops would be gone in October, but the field we used was in corn then and unusable. Douglas worked with us to rotate and harvest his crops to allow us the use of ALL the fields on the event weekend. He got the last of the black eyed peas up the weekend before the event.

Cory Garrett – Mr. Garrett’s son who provided straw for the medical barn.
GL White of White’s Port a Johns – This one explains itself. We did get a cut on the CS side toilets. One for the “home” team.
Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Dept and the deputy who directed traffic on Saturday to ensure the safety of the visiting public.
Clint Schemmer – Free Lance Star – for some pre-event advertisement.
Jeff Kindred – SWB Jeff allowed us to take wood from his property in Orange County to use at the event. We moved about three truckloads off of there a couple of weeks prior to the event.
Steve Dunn – Steve allowed us to use excess wood from his event at Brandy Station for the event. We must have gotten 5 loads of wood from Steve.
When I say “we” I mean the following folks helped to cut, split and move wood for the event. Special props go out to Paul Lutz who procured a power splitter for our use:
Mike Philips, Rich Taddeo, Phil Maddox, Glenn Courson, John O’Donnell, Russell Lucia, Scott Chapman (Sorry if I missed anyone)
Brad Ireland – SWB – Without Brad, I would have been soaked on Friday night.
Noah Briggs and staff – For providing a first person experience to those who were interested.
Jeff Baldwin – SWB Web master for the event

Chris Beck – SWB for manning registration on Friday night/Saturday morning and doing anything we needed doing prior to the event.
Beverly Heath – Bev also helped at registration and provided edibles for donors to the preservation jar. The pies, potatoes, peaches and other assorted goodies went over well.
Eric Mink – SWB Eric provided historical information for the website and feedback on event ideas from me from the beginning. He also developed and delivered the public tour on Saturday afternoon, herding a reported 260 spectators onto and off of the field.
Bob Schaffer, Scott Schrimpe and Mike Williamson – SWB These guys arrived early on Friday from New York and distributed the firewood from the big barn to the campsites prior to the event. You can thank them for keeping us “lit”.
Jerry Stiles – SWB Overall CS commander and schedule developer. Jerry kept things running according to and on schedule.
Kevin O’Beirne – Columbia Rifles Kevin developed the vast majority of the Federal side of the event; including the web information, pre-event communications, scenario building and holding conference calls. He also wrote the overall event implementation plan in great detail. This is the second (and last) event I’ve planned with Kevin’s invaluable help and I consider each a success in large part to Kevin’s efforts on and off the field.
Ley Watson – Columbia Rifles Lee played many large parts of this event to include securing a letter of credit that the DHR requires in the amount of $5000 to cover losses to the property. He also was responsible for procuring and preparing (with help from Pete McCarthy, Joe Caridi and Bev Heath) the mannequins that you saw in the field. This aspect really added to the overall event. Lee also worked during the event helping with everything from registration to water to parking. I can’t thank him enough.
Charles Heath – Columbia Rifles Charles is good at what he does, period. All I have to do is ask him to handle water for an event and then I can forget about it. ATB was no exception. Charles started moving things to the site a week prior to the event and he is still cleaning up the site as I write this. He doesn’t let me forget anything that needs doing and helped to raise a large portion of money for the preservation jar. How many guys do you know who can talk someone into buying a $300 pie? Simply put, without Charles, this event would not have happened. I can’t thank him enough and I will miss working with him.
Lastly, I would like to thank all the participants. Many registered and sent in their money, but you guys showed up and walked the walk. Thanks to you, we raised an additional $3000 in donations for the CWPT. Couple that with your registration money and we will donate nearly $5000 to the Slaughter Pen loan through the CWPT. For those who signed up but didn’t show, you missed a unique opportunity and one I hope the participants will remember for a while.