The
Beach House:
The
"Beach House" is located in Anna Maria Island, Florida
USA.
I
started dating my wife Shelly in 1978 and every summer her maternal
family would go out to Anna Maria Island for vacation. This
tradition started with Shelly's grandmother Emma Tyler Whisenant
(Nanamae) and great aunt Marcella Tyler Dumas dating back to the
early 1910's. Back at that time they would stay for the
whole summer and had to get to the Island via boat.
The "Beach
House" is what they call their summer vacation. Prior
to when I started attending the entire family (Emma had 5 children
and Marcella had 3) would all stay in one house thus the name
"Beach House." Today there are so many in the
family several homes are rented in the city of Anna Maria.
The Beach
House is always the first two weeks in July. Everyone is
very faithful not to schedule anything during that time.
Main headquarters is 107 Palmetto Avenue aka "The Big House"
which happens to be Dick and Phyllis White's rental home.
They are Shelly's uncle and aunt.
The routine
is simple. Morning swim at the end of Palmetto Avenue is
around 9:30 AM. Stay out until lunch. A late afternoon
swim followed by the sunset ends the day. Every Sunday there is
a big lunch at the Big House. The biggest day is July 4th
where the evening meal attendance has hovered near the 100 mark.
Rook
One of the
many activities that takes place at the Beach House is Rook.
I had never heard of it and to this day I am constantly reminded
how awful of a player I am. As the years passed I would
always hear of the stories of these wild Rook games and who was
the best team. It can easily compared to the Florida-FSU
rivalry except there were at least 8 established teams that developed
over the years. The problem was no format to determine a
champion. I may be a bad Rook player but I can organize
most anything. But how would the family respond to something
like that?
The
First Tournament
In 1988, I
decided to give it a try. From what I can remember of it
I tried to much to quick. Although the family responded very positive
towards it, you never should be to specific on game time.
This is still our vacation time and some like to fish, or swim,
or go into town and the Tournament may have to wait. The family
also had to learn how to read a winner and loser's bracket.
Thoughts
Over the years
we have tweaked the Tournament to where it pretty much runs itself.
The family knows what to do. We try to start around July 4th but
I have to find out everyone's schedule to try to accommodate the
players with the best start date. One year Drew Eason who
at the time was marketing the 10-K sports drink donated several
gallons and we made them an official sponsor for one year. In
1991 we started the Children's Tournament to jump start the Tournament.
In 1993 I wrote a letter to Parker Brothers to try to sanction
the Tournament and make it officially recognized. They sent
me a press kit. In 1996 we had T-Shirts and in 2000 we had
information published to the internet as www.geocities.com/beachhouserooktournament.
In 2003 the current domain name www.rooktournament.com was purchased..
Ken Burton, Jr.
Rook Tournament Director
Renamed
In 1998 the
Children's Tournament was renamed the Marcella Dumas
Memorial Children's Rook Tournament in honor
of the 1991 champ upon her death. At the same time the Rook
Tournament was renamed to the Emma Whisenant Memorial
Rook Tournament in honor of Marcella's sister.
