On the banks of the Ausable River on 01 June 1997, Jim Tefft proposed marriage to his bestest fishing buddy, Pat McGlory. He did it by tying an engagement ring to the tippet of Pat's flyline along with a scrap of paper featuring the words "Will you marry me?", which she discovered as she was rigging up to go fishing. On hand to witness this bit of FF@ romance were Luis Nasim and myself. And the camera doesn't lie, as the next 3 photos will attest:
OK, that's the big news from Lake Placid Clave '97, but it's not the only news. We held two raffles during the Saturday night party, the usual silly raffle and a special raffle to raise money for the FF@ Youth Fund. The fund was established to support tuition for youth fly fishing/conservation camps. We had wonderful donations from many generous FF@ers. Notably we had 2 donated fly boxes that were filled with FF@ flies that were also donated. We also had a special print donated by artist Stephen Di Cerbo. The raffle raised over $200 for the youth fund. Here's Bill Barnard winning the Fox Box donated by Richard Frank:
Blake Werner winning the Wheatley box donated by Aaron Hirschhorn. Alas, we didn't get the "Blakearena" that immediately preceded this photo on videotape, it would've made a nice Quicktime movie....
Here's Kim Lim winning Stephen's print. Stephen's in the background.
Speaking of prizes, here's a rare photograph of itenerant philosopher and library scientist Bruce Pencek winning a FF@ t-shirt for traveling the farthest to get to the conclave. He made it in from Urbana, IL. He was also presented with a can of SPAMŽ. Oh, that's him on the right.
