Fernley Rotary Club hosting inaugural Rotary Horserace Oct. 2

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

When she began looking for ideas for a new fundraiser for the Rotary Club of Fernley, the club’s fundraising chairperson, Tracy Jo Johnson, wanted to come up with something that hadn’t been done before in Fernley.

The result is the club’s inaugural Rotary Horserace, a golf tournament with a new twist, which will be held Saturday, Oct. 2 at the Golf Club at Fernley.

Proceeds will benefit Fernley Rotary projects. The club’s largest project is the school food backpack program, in which packs of food are provided to students in Fernley schools and Natchez Elementary in Wadsworth who may not have enough to eat on weekends. The Club purchases the food and packs it into bags that are sent home with students on Fridays.

The Rotary Horserace is a golf tournament in which players are eliminated after every hole until only one person is left. Johnson said her hope is to have four groups of 18 players, although she isn’t sure if this first event will have that many.

Each group will start at the first tee, but even as players are eliminated, they will continue to ride in their carts to heckle the remaining players as they tee off. After only one player is left from each group, those players will start over, until only the winner is left. Johnson said there will be one men’s and one women’s winner.

“It’s nothing like anybody has done around here and hopefully it will turn into an even bigger event next year,” Johnson said. “I’m super excited and I think it will be a lot of fun.”

The title sponsor for the vent is Phelps Engineering, and the dinner sponsor is Nevada State Bank. Event sponsors include Shari Walsh at Summit Funding; Trex; American Battery Technology Company; Grocery Outlet; Carpet King; Northern Nevada Imaging; Royal CarpetOne; Cardin Realty Pros; Ultimate Air; Nevada Alaska Mining; The Tap Wagon; Silverado and Lisa Bertock, Finance of America.