SCORESHEET
The 1st Annual Nebraska Highlander is now official. After a rainy start, things cleared up and we were able to have a great day. Kilts were flying, belts were tightening and the competitors were ready to go.
Before I get to the events, I have to start off by thanking everyone that was involved. If I do forget someone, I do apologize and thank you more than you can imagine, but I believe I have everyone accounted for.
First off, thanks to all the competitors for putting on a great show. We had competitors from all strength & sports avenues, highland games, strongman, powerlifting, arena football and more. Thanks to my beautiful wife for everything she did throughout the day, the days leading up to the event and just in general. To my business partner, Richard ?Vince? Vincent. You did a great job with everything and especially the sponsors. To my judges, what an amazing job they did, Vince, Zack Best, Bob Coco & Jason Bangs, for doing all you did all day, you guys kept things running very smoothly. To my loaders and spotters, Tonya, Chad, Ray & Lance, you all did an incredible job and worked your butts off all day. To Bill Purcell, for helping us clean up and unload equipment. To my mother, sister and brother-in-law and sister-in-law for running the raffle table, shirt sales, etc. To Nicole Melnick for just being around to do whatever we needed. To Jesse Jobe, Tim Pinkerton, Sean Betz, Scott Tully & Al Myers for letting me use some of their equipment, to Mindy Capello for being the head scorekeepers. To Jimmy Jett, for the use of his sound system. To the American Legion, SAL & Auxiliary, for the use of their facility, providing concessions and everything else they did. To the City of Papillion, for bringing in the cones and bleachers. To Red Bull, for supplying us with a competitor tent, tables and product. To the Papillion Times, PapioVision and KPTM Channel 42 for media coverage. And finally, to all the sponsors that helped out with being the title sponsor, buying an event, raffle items or goody bag items, you all did an incredible job.
I cannot thank all of you enough as none of this could have happened without you. And the most important thing of all was that through everyones help, we raised $2,500 for Camp CoHoLo. We are very happy about this as this is our purpose of putting on the show.
Now on to the contest. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new ones. We had a variety of competitors from numerous strength disciplines such as Pro strongmen, Pro highland games, Pro football and Powerlifing. I thought all the divisions were very competitive all day. Due to the weather, we ran the strongman events first and then went to the highland games events. Most of the strongman competitors got out to the early leads but then the highland games competitors made a huge charge to take some of the podium spots away.
Amy Doner got the win in the womens division with some very impressive performances. Amy is only 15yrs. old and is much improved from last year. The masters class saw Darren Barnhart get the win, by winning 3 of the 6 events. Larry Kaiser took 2nd place with David Lindstrom getting 3rd. The lightweight class was won by .5pts. Jesse Jobe narrowly beat out Tim Pinkerton for the win. Mac Capello fell behind early and really made a charge to claim 3rd place by .5pts. The middleweight class was dominated by Adam Keep. Adam took 1st place by winning 5 of the 6 events. Eric Todd had a very good day to get 2nd place, just holding off Glenn Melnick by 2 pts. The heavyweights saw Warrick Brant of Australia win the division by 1pt. over Charles Kasson. Sean Betz, who won all the highland games events in the HW division, came in 3rd place. HW Pro strongman John Conner was on hand as a guest lifter and did some impressive lifting with a couple highlights being a big log press and heavy farmers walk.
There were many performances that were impressive all day and every division was very competitive. The highlander format really proves that you must be an all around athlete, not just strong and not just athletic, but both.
Once again, thanks to everyone involved with this event and we hope to see you next year.