Our annual banquet was held on February 14th, at the Plaza Resort & Spa Daytona Beach Resort. Our meals were great, as was the service. Everyone seemed to have an enjoyable evening.
There is a lot of “behind the scenes” work that goes on, even before the banquet begins. Paulette Mandala and Ray Fox spent weeks going to the race track and other functions to get signatures on the BELL Racing helmet, (which was auctioned off and brought in a huge $8,100) and they spent months gathering other items to be auctioned off at the Silent and Regular Auction at the banquet. Paulette Mandala and the rest of her awards committee: Joan Maxwell, Carol Peoples, Juanita Epton, Ray Fox and Bob Coolidge met and voted on award nominees. Paulette and Ray made phone calls and then letters were written to confirm both award recipients and presenters. Joan Maxwell and her banquet committee – Deborah Burdick, Doris Majeski, Glenn McClone & Bob Coolidge did a lot of work planning the banquet. It’s very time consuming getting everyone’s reservations made; setting up the dinner tables with centerpieces and programs and arranging all the tables as to who is going to sit where. And did you notice the unique centerpieces? Bob Majeski not only came up with the idea, but he made each and every one of them. Debbie Burdick went around the whole hall to make sure the sound system was working properly and that everyone would be able to hear the speakers. Olin Hopes, Buddy Clark and Charlie Speaks arrived early at the banquet to set up all of our merchandise to be sold that they picked up from our museum. John Peoples put in endless time making portraits of the award winners. He is a great artist and we appreciate his talent. As you can see, it takes a lot of people and a lot of work to put this banquet together. Thanks so much to each and every one of you.
We would like to thank Ned Jarrett for being our Master of Ceremonies. He did a fantastic job; hopefully he’ll do it again next year. And, of course, what would we do without our “man with the camera”, John Peoples, taking pictures of everything that went on during the evening. A big thank you, also, to Glenn McClone for directing people to their dinner tables – it saved a lot of confusion.
