Despite a deluge of rain that plagued Warrior’s Weekend most of the week leading up to Warrior’s Weekend IX, the skies opened up on Saturday, the day of the tournament and over 900 wounded heroes had a great day on the waters around Port O’Connor.  Once again, the POC folks showed their patriotism and, along with our volunteers, showed the heroes how South Texas feels about their wounded warriors.

There were over 400 boats filled with volunteers waiting for the heroes when it was time to go fishing.  Warrior’s Weekend wishes to thank all of the Calhoun County volunteers, including the POC Community Center folks for allowing us the use of your great facility once again.  You should take pride in the fact that you host the largest event of it’s kind in the world and make it possible for our wounded heroes to have a weekend they won’t soon forget.  Many of them are already asking as to how soon they can sign up for next year.  Once again, the night fishing on Saturday night at The Sanctuary was a big hit with the heroes and their families which was more important than ever this year as we could not allow family members to fish with their loved one on the boats due to the great response from the heroes.  Again, the rain presented a challenge to our planning but we managed to overcome and our guests loved it.

If you were a boat captain this year, please allow us to thank you on behalf of our heroes.  If you were one of the few who did not have a hero on your boat, again, we thank you for being there for them.  As we say, it is more important to have a few boats without heroes than to have heroes without boats.  We hope you all sign up next year  (May 21st) as we experience our 10th anniversary.

A great deal of thanks must also go out to the host families who allowed many of our heroes to stay with you.  Bill Tigrett and his staff do a great service to our heroes by setting this up and we could not host as many as we do without their help.

If you’d like to become involved with Warrior’s Weekend, please go to www.warriorsweekend.org online or send me an email at ron_kocian@hotmail.com.  We also welcome any suggestions/criticisms you may have.  Although we are not perfect, there usually is a reason we do things as we do but are always looking to do it better.  Our largest fundraiser of the year will be held on April 9th in 2016 in Victoria and is quite a night.  If you would like to attend, please let me know early as it has been a sellout each of the six years we have held it.

Again, thanks to all on behalf of our heroes and we look forward to Warrior’s Weekend X.

Ron Kocian, President
Warrior’s Weekend