L-R: Chris Botkin, Larry Schaaf, Rees McKee. |
For the sixth consecutive year, Larry Schaaf Auto Sales is sponsoring the First Place Prize for the K.C. Geiger Park Committee's Summerfest Duck Race.
The duck finishing first on August 10 will win for its owner a 1995 Isuzu Rodeo Sport Utility Vehicle, pictured above. At this writing there are 72 other cash and merchandise prizes offered by local businesses and merchants, with more arriving daily. Check the Duck Race web site for more information and prize updates.
This year's race is the eleventh annual running of the popular event, which has been billed as the "Second-Greatest Spectacle in Racing" but in fact more closely resembles Pooh-sticks, a game played by the late A.A. Milne's boyhood stuffed animals.
"I take exception to that characterization," chided K.C. Geiger Park Improvement Committee President Rees McKee. "There is no resemblance between the Duck Race and Pooh-sticks, other than the coincidence that they both consist of inanimate objects floating under a bridge on water moving at less than one mile per hour."
"I take exception to calling our ducks 'inanimate,'" said Committee Treasurer Dave Stilwell. "I prefer to think of them in terms of Olympic-style athletes, dedicating their entire existences to a few minutes of frivolous activity. Just because both are lifeless doesn't make them 'inanimate.'"
Committee Secretary Chris Botkin attempted to preserve some purpose in the interview, in vain. "This year, we have decided to conduct the Race in four dimensions," he commented somewhat mysteriously, "also, we will attempt to record Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applied at the macromolecular level in six feet of water, on videotape and smoke chambers."
Botkin's remarks, which are not explained on the Duck Race web site, are thought by leading phrenologists to be evidence of brain fever.
The ten previous Duck Races have raised more than $75,000 for K.C. Geiger Park. Tickets are $5.00 each and will go on sale Tuesday, July 22 at Schaaf Auto Sales. Duck Race tickets will also be on sale at the Schaaf Auto tent at the Auglaize County Fair, July 26 to August 2, and will be sold at Memorial Park during Summerfest, August 7-10.
