On Monday, June 9th, Ron Sloy won 1st Place Gross at the 2014 15th Anniversary of the FurBall Open, with a tournament record of 69. It’s the second year in a row that Ron has won Low Gross. In 2013 he shot a winning score of 70.
The FurBall Open helps raise money for the Children’s Hospital to help kids go to camp.
The FurBall Open was created in memory of Scott Hughes. Scott knew how to live. From his earliest years, anyone could see that he had an energy and an enthusiasm for life that few people in this world are smart or lucky enough to experience. And even when, at the age of 15, he contracted kidney disease and was forced to endure both dialysis and a kidney transplant, his spiritual energy never waned even when his physical energy was depleted. For four years, the transplant successfully enabled Scott to complete high school.
Unfortunately, the disease returned to Scott’s kidney and led to dialysis, but he prevailed and graduated from college with a degree in Resort and Recreation Management. Thereafter, he moved to the Fraser River Valley, where he became a counselor at the Vacation Kidney Center at the YMCA. Located at the Snow Mountain Ranch/YMCA just outside Winter Park, Colorado, the Vacation Kidney Center of the Rockies blends state-of-the art dialysis machines with the majesty of the Rocky Mountains. A true, sleep-away camp for kids, it enables pediatric kidney patients to participate in traditional camp activities. Arts and crafts, sports, fishing, hiking and scenic outdoor living are all offered to its week-long campers, while treatments and medical attention are provided throughout the summer.
Scott was impressed with the program because he so believed that kids with chronic disease need to know they can do all the things other kids can do, and this camp offers the opportunity to make that discovery. As Scott never allowed himself to be defined by kidney disease, so this program inspires that attitude in other young people.
The world suffered a great loss when Scott succumbed to this dreaded disease in 1994 when he was 24 years old. But his memory and his spirit live on. Upon his death, his parents, Kent and Jancie Hughes, created the Scott Hughes Endowment Fund to provide scholarships to young campers wishing to attend the glorious camp where Scott once worked. (The Fund is administered by the Children’s Hospital Foundation in Denver, CO.) In 2000, his friends and family joined together to create the FurBall Open (dubbed as such for his college nickname). A not-for-profit event, the FurBall Open will donate sponsor proceeds and players’ tournament registration fees to the Scott Hughes Endowment Fund. After raising more than $57,000 over the past 14 years, Scott’s family and friends are excited about a record year in 2014! years of friends limping over and tapping me on the shoulder during the FurBall Open 3-on-3 basketball tournament with the “suggestion” that we switch the event to golf, we finally made the move to the links in 2008. It turned out to be a GREAT move, not only because of how much fun the event was but also because over the past five years we have generated $35,000+ (golf tourney revenue only) for the Scott Hughes Endowment Fund in the new format.