Welcome to Wingham’s Winning Wingding

Play this game, help a driver!

You learn something new every day. Today a woman named Julie Pettapiece taught me how to play Wingham-Rules Cornhole.

By way of explanation, Wingham is the south-central Ontario town where this coming Saturday night (March 2), several hundred people will party to raise money for a very good cause: Bob Reaman.

Reaman, a father of five, used to drive for the agricultural hauler WSC Transport. Then one day two Christmases ago, he felt sick.

One doctor’s visit led to another, until eventually, Reaman learned he had one of the worst disesases going, Lou Gehrig’s, and he had to quit work. And of course he’s short on cash.

Julie Pettapiece is the controller at WSC. She and another friend of Bob’s, Maryanne McCormick, put together the March 2 fundraiser.

I thought about Julie today because I’m doing the final admin work for a contest we run here at Today’s Trucking Magazine: The Highway Star of The Year, in which a panel of judges locates and rewards an outstanding driver who is not only great behind the wheel but also outstanding in his or her community.

Usually, Highway Stars of The Year turn out to be like Julie — energetic and always on the lookout for their fellow citizens. Trying to make the world a better place. (Memo to Julie: Get your truck licence! Apply to be a Highway Star! You already have the DNA for it.)

But I digress.

I blogged about the Reaman fundraiser a month or so ago and told you that one of the reasons you might want to attend was that one of the door prizes was a wheelbarrow full of booze. I thought it was a swell addition to the night.

But like so many of life’s funnest-sounding ideas, the liquor cops frowned on the wheelbarrow thing so, Julie tells me they’ve had to alter their plans a bit. No big deal. Practical folks like her know how to wing things.

According to Julie, party-goers will get a chance to win LCBO gift cards by competing in the first ever Wingham,- ON Cornhole Tournament.

Here’s how you play.

There’s a board with a hole in it. It might even look like the one in the picture, with corn painted on it.

You pay $5 and try to toss a beanbag into the hole. If you get it in, you move back 10 feet and try again.

If you miss and want to start over, you pony up another fin. If you’re good enough and keep hitting the target, you might wind up in the championship round and heck maybe you’ll be crowned Wingham-Rules Cornhole Champ 2013. (They could get a t-shirt made: “Beanbags: I Wing’em in Wingham!”)

And of course all those five dollars’ will go to a good cause.

So even if the buzz-killing powers-that-be put the kibosh on the wheelbarrow-full-of-gin idea, they can’t rob Wingham of what’s really important. Here’s what I wrote when I last mentioned Bob Reaman, and this, nobody’s going to change:

“Funds raised will not only help the family cover medical costs but also enable them to hire the specialized care and transport Bob needs to have day trips outside of the hospital.”

The dance starts at 9: 00 p.m. and will feature a live band, Sound Drive. They’re still accepting donations for the silent auction and you can find out by checking out their Facebook page here.

Donations can also be deposited at any CIBC branch to the Reaman Family Benefit in Trust (Transit -02652/11-88739)."