The Union County Business & Professional Association hosted the 26th Annual UCBPA Charities Scholarship Benefit Classic at Three Ridges Golf Course in Knoxville on January 27.
The event raises money to fund scholarships for graduating Union County seniors. To date, the tournament has funded over $110,000 for over 100 seniors to realize their post-high-school dreams. Since the coronavirus prevented the UCHS Senior Awards day, this year's UCBPA scholarships will be awarded at the UCBPA Meeting on Wednesday, August 12, at Pete's Place at noon. Recipients are Savannah Jones (Jeffreys Memorial Academic Scholarship), Alex Padgett (Career & Technical Scholarship), and Kennedy Hill (Service Scholarship). Lunch is available at the meeting for $10 and all members and prospective members are urged to attend.
The tournament resulted in some close competition with two of the three winning teams seeing handicap scores used to break a tie for first place. The winning team was KCB Excavating with Kyle Beeler, the captain, who shared the $500 prize. A new BPA member, Josh Collins, his team’s captain and owner of Collins Insurance in Maynardville, accepted the second place award of $300 with his team. Third place of $100 went to a newcomer to the tournament, Brian Sammons, and his team. Brian also won four rounds of golf with a cart from Three Ridges for hitting Closest to the Pin on hole #5. Austin Collins shot Closest to the Pin on hole #16 to receive two rounds of golf with a cart from Dead Horse Lake Golf Course. Drew Fugate commanded the Longest Drive contest to garner four rounds of golf with a cart from Three Ridges.
The Putting Contest offered an interesting occurrence. Each participant paid $5 for two putts with no limit on the number of purchased attempts. After several players offered their best putt, Peter Hartmans paid his $5. But both of his putts missed with the first putt only inches to the left, and the second inches to the right. Another teammate came within less than two inches. So, Peter paid for another attempt. His second putt dropped in the cup, Peter Hartmans pocketed $50 from Collins Insurance for his $10 investment.
Food City, Union County Education Association and the Toppins Family were major event sponsors. Goodie bags, door prizes, and beverages were provided by Food City, Pepsi Co of Knoxville, Eagle Distributing, Cherokee Distributing, Corum Bookkeeping, Collins Insurance, Thunder Road Printing and Graphic Design and UCBPA. Li'l Jo's Bar-B-Que supplied an outstanding lunch of perfectly smoked pork, potato salad, baked beans, and barbecue sauce. Eighteen teams played and over 50 businesses and individuals were hole sponsors.
The BPA Golf Committee is Scott Inklebarger, Martin Shafer, Gina Buckner, Marilyn Toppins, and Gail Corum, and expects the tournament to net over $7,000 for future scholarships. Other BPA Volunteers included Carm Sellers, Wayne Toppins, and Robert Corum.
They and the committee served lunch, posted hole sponsors, ran the drink cart, administered the putting green, registered golfers, and awarded prizes. Anyone who would like to play, sponsor, or volunteer for next year's tournament, may email your contact information to ucbpatngolf@gmail.com.
Thanks so much to Three Ridges and all who supported the golf tournament. We look forward to seeing you next year.