By Breven Honda

The month of June marks a break for the Mesquite Senior Games as the summer months arrive, along with the heat.

As a result, the Mesquite Senior Games Board of Directors has three months to get ready for the fall season.

The Board of Directors, which is led by President Sandy Tudor, said the fall slate will include men’s softball, golf, bocce, pickleball and bowling.

“We’ve got an abbreviated fall season coming up,” said Tudor, who is slowly starting to begin the planning of the events in the fall.

However, for the final event of the fall season, bowling, things are coming together, even being six months away.

“We’ve actually already established the date with the bowling alley because we’ve got to book that one pretty far out because basically, they have to close the bowling alley for at least the morning that we’re there,” Tudor said. “So, they’ve been very accommodating for this coming December. As always, that will be our last event for the year.”

MSG participates in Mesquite Days

A week after the conclusion of the spring season wrapping up with the bocce event, the Mesquite Senior Games continued its production to help, this time running the concession stand for Mesquite Days in early May.

The MSG volunteers were in attendance from May 1-3 for the pickleball tournament.

Part of being in attendance for the pickleball tournament, helping out in the concession stand selling snacks and drinks, meant also getting questions about when the fall pickleball event will be.

Tudor said pickleball players cannot wait to return to the court in the fall.

“We told the city that we do it for them because we had done so well when we had our event,” Tudor said of helping out for Mesquite Days. “People were stopping by to see if we had a date yet for our event. The pickleball people are always excited. Everybody we talked to at bocce, as we were finishing up that event, we told them we’d have it in the fall, so they were excited.

June marks one year of bringing in the five new board members

Last June, the Mesquite Senior Games added five members to its Board of Directors in Vicky Fikani, Jim Armstrong, Kara Meyers, Marge Mongolo and Krista Kilpatrick. 

Over the last year, they have built themselves up to host events and provide an impact to the most recent spring season.

“The fact that Marge, and Krista and Jim all ran events as the event director for our spring events, it was so helpful and important to have these new board members,” Tudor said.

Although Meyers resigned from her board position in May following the spring season, Tudor was able to fill her spot. Linda Vandervolgen has come in and is starting to get involved.

MSG Board still has goals during the summer, despite break, including getting a van

Even though the Mesquite Senior Games is on break, there is still work to be done, especially for Tudor and the board.

In addition to reorganizing the storage unit, the MSG is looking to upgrade how they transport its supplies from the storage unit to an event or from event to event.

In the past, Tudor or another event director would rely on their own vehicles to transport any supplies, whether it is player medals, athletic supplies or shirts.

As a result, the group is looking for a 10- to 14-foot box truck to improve its function ahead of the fall games or next year’s spring season.

“We want to get something like a box van where we can put all of the equipment and rather than having to go there with my truck or (Sports Director Shaun Edwards’) truck and load stuff up and take it to an event and then take it down, load it back into our trucks, take it back to storage,” Tudor said. “We want to be able to keep everything in that box van and just take it to the event, use it, put it back in the van and park it. There’s no special licensing required or anything to drive but we’d have to buy one and get insurance and that’s about it.

“We’re going to be actively looking for a van this summer. If somebody has one or access to one, they could certainly give me a call.”

If you are looking to donate or give your van to the Mesquite Senior Games, you can contact Tudor at (702) 345-3347 or by e-mail at mesquiteseniorgames@gmail.com.