It all began in April 2005. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) sent a Recovery Month Kit in the mail and it wound up on the desk of the Chief Operating Officer at La Hacienda Treatment Center, a gentleman by the name of Rich Whitman.  As is his custom, Rich began to thumb through it and the annual mutterings began about how we ought to do something in honor of Recovery Month. Right about that time, one of his two assistants made the mistake of walking into his office and the baton was passed. The next thing you know, Rhonda and Lisa were flipping through the kit and searching the Recovery Month website for ideas. Wouldn't you know it! Somebody, somewhere had held a little shindig in a park and an idea was born! Hey Rich! How about a big shindig with hamburgers and hot dogs in Louise Hays Park for our alumni? Oh no! He loved the idea! Then the real fun began! We had about six weeks to throw this bash together. But if you know anything at all about  Rich Whitman, you know that he's full of great ideas about how things should be done and the words "can't be done" are not in his vocabulary. What started as a simple cookout for the alumni of La Hacienda soon turned into a big cookout for anyone who wanted to come complete with a pre-event motorcycle run. Oh boy! As it turned out, September 23, 2005 was a beautiful sunny day. There were 21 participants in the motorcycle run which started in Hunt and traveled through Fredericksburg and Center Point and ended at Louise Hays Park in Kerrville. There were recovery speakers and "Still Here" provided listening entertainment while the kids jumped in the bounce house. The crowd of over 600 people was a bit larger than our original expectations because we had an opportunity to give back by inviting the Hurricane Katrina refugees in the area to come out and eat with us. What an opportunity to show people "real recovery"!

Yep, we had so much fun Rich decided we should do it again in 2006, only bigger! Uh oh! Bigger how? This time he thought we should bring in a name to perform. He thought Ray Wylie Hubbard would be a good choice. Oh man! Now we're talkin' about expending some energy! Still, we had lots of time to plan and work out all the details. And that is exactly what we did. Next thing you know, September is upon us and we found ourselves back at Louise Hays Park running our little legs off. We had Texas Concessions providing food and drinks, booths set up by some of the local sober organizations, T-shirts for sale and a bounce house for the kids. Best of all, 3000 plus people had the pleasure of listening to Ray Wylie Hubbard's magical voice for 2 hours. And if that wasn't thrilling enough, Ray autographed one of his guitars and let us have it for a raffle. The raffle proceeds went to the SIMS Foundation to help musicians access mental health and substance abuse services. It was a great time!

Yep, you guessed it! It was such a great time, we're going to do it again! And again and again and again! Rich and his great ideas are hard at work again for the 2007 bash! We're looking at seven performers including Ray Wylie Hubbard of course, along with Marc Benno and the Neo Nightcrawlers, The Resentments, Shawn Pander, 72, Bekah Kelso and Nicole Mauricio. We'll be raffling off a couple of items and have a few more activities for the children and eats and drinks from Texas Concessions. Hopefully, there will be lots of sunshine but the event will go on rain or shine so bring your umbrellas, just in case. We can't wait! Hope to see you there to help us make sober history!