The 2023 Detroit Area Steelheaders (DAS)Sportsman's Dinner this past Saturday, March 4, came off once again, as has come to be expected ...A HUGE SUCCESS!! Mother-nature tried to discourage it with wind damaged wires and a power outage at about 2:00 pm during set-up. However, just as emergency back-up power installation was about to be completed, DTE restored service. A bit late but we were able to let people in the doors about 5:30 and the dinner was a go. Thank goodness as it is the only fundraiser that the DAS does and it's success is very important to our mission of promoting and protecting the Great Lakes fisheries!
Our Main Sponsors really came thru as usual. The Country Smoke House served up a fantastic meal once again as comments from the crowd were nothing but great about food. The Premium Meat Cooler Raffle they provided us with was stocked with a fantastic variety of meats. That was met with enthusiasm and sold out quickly! Plenty of Thanks to Steve and Sue Francis and their Country Smoke House crew!
Michi-Gun provided a great selection for our (18) Gun Draws and the gun winners all went home very happy!
A Big Thanks to Richard Barch and the Mich-Gun Staff for all their support!
Many thanks to John Lombardo of Lombardo's Taxidermy for the beautiful Wild Life display!
Thanks also to Capt. Joel Piatek of Fish Headz Charters for providing the Walleye Charter Raffle Prize!
Thanks to the American Polish Cultural Center for providing the venue and servers for this great event.
A Big Round of Applause for Billy Hoffman for his excellent job as MC and keeping the evening's dinner, raffles and drawings at a great pace and ensuring everyone was able to get home early. Billy is definitely a funny, entertaining guy!
The Dinner Ticket Stub Raffle, (3) $1 and (19) $5 Table Raffles and the (8) 50/50 Raffles were tremendously successful and experienced the best ever ticket sales! Thanks to all of our Sponsors for allowing us to present the great selection of prizes! See the complete list of sponsors below.
The entire evening wouldn't have been possible without the tremendous effort from our WGD Chairman Carl Ventimiglia and his wife Kellie for putting the whole thing together. Many, many Thanks to them! And of course, the rest of the Board of Directors (BOD) of the DAS ------ Jim Zanke (President), Bob Feisel (Vice President),James Anderson (Secretary), Rod Elnick (Treasurer), Nathan Case, Dan Chisholm, Bob Ksionzek, Bob Paradise, Blaise Pewinski, Rob Pinskey and Virginia Williams as well as volunteers Mary Chisholm, Vicki Feisel, Anthony Lewis and others who worked behind the scenes.
Sponsors/Donors
Blake's Orchard Michi-GUN
Country Smoke House Nathan's Tech Supply
Della's Maple Lane Florist North Woods Wholsale Outlet
Fish Headz - Joel Piatek Paradise Jigs
Kathy Mikros PK Lures
Lami-Glass Sandy Elnick
Lombardo Taxidermy Seams Like Fun