Auburn, Calif. – The week after Eppie's Great Race was no time for relaxing for the Reese Clan; they were about to be bombarded with visitors. While they were expecting more than 100 people to attend Skeet's 40 th birthday / Bassmaster Classic Championship party, there was work to do.
“I don't think I stopped running all week,” the reigning Classic Champion said. “We cleaned up the yard; pressure washed the house and sidewalks and just got the property ready across the board.” However hard the Reese's worked in the week prior, it didn't start there. “We started by sending the invitation out a couple of months ago,” Reese said. “We expected quite a crowd, but I'm not sure we expected the amount of people who came.”
While the actual preparation was a tedious, weeklong project, it was certainly not without its excitement. “All of my heavy work was over, and I was looking forward to a relaxing Friday while the rental company installed the tents,” he said of the final piece of the puzzle, however, Murphy and all of his laws came to visit. “They were installing the posts to lock the tents down on the lawn, when water started shooting up out of the ground.”
Following the exhaustive process of digging three feet to isolate the problem, it was discovered that the stake had punctured several of the pipes leading to the Reese's pool filter system and the spa was filling with muddy water. “It took us the rest of the day to dig it up, fix the pipes, fill the hole and replace the sod,” Reese said.
With all of the trouble behind them, Saturday arrived, as did the crowds of family and friends who were attending the party. Skeet and Kim began to move around in host and hostess mode, greeting the guests and making sure all of the food and drinks were in place.
Following the repairs to the pool, it got an extreme workout, as the throngs of children leapt in and out of the waters, off the elevated spa. Reese said he was a little concerned about going into the pool, with the amount of use it received. “I'm not sure how many of people were in that water at any one time, but, I'm sure I'll need extra salt to filter the water completely.”
The party featured a full band that was fronted by the father of one of daughter Leah's classmates and as Reese said, they did a great job of playing music and keeping people entertained throughout the evening. “We hadn't even heard them play, but figured they were worth a shot, they sounded really good.”
Nobody went home hungry as the Reese's brought in the Mikuni Sushi Bus and Marie's Mexican food to feed the crowd of 140 people. “The bus was a big hit, and Marie's is the best Mexican food in all of Auburn, it was a big hit with everyone.”
The highlight of the night was that Gerald Swindle and his wife Le Ann arrived and surprised the Classic Champ. “I couldn't believe that they came all the way from Alabama to come to the party,” Reese said. “It was a total shock to see them standing at the edge of the backyard as they came into the back yard; I was totally surprised by it.”
Reese took a moment midstream to greet his guests from the microphone, and was overtaken with emotion as he looked at the Bassmaster Classic Trophy sitting on the bar. “That was the first time in a while that it has hit me that way,” Reese said. “I guess being in front of friends and family made it all become real in a new way; it happened really quickly, and surprised me.”
Following Skeet's speech, Swindle grabbed the mic and entertained the crowd with his own personal brand of stand up that had the crowd laughing; and shaking their heads. “I'm not entirely sure everybody knew what he was saying all the time, but they were laughing, and that was enough.”
The party carried on until midnight, as any real Classic winner's birthday should, “Having my early mentors, and all of my family and most of my close friends there meant everything to me; hopefully we'll get to do it again soon with an Angler of the Year celebration,” Reese said in closing.
