Time of Remembrance golf tournament heads to Warden

WARDEN – A charity golf tournament will be held at the Sage Hills Golf Club on August 27, raising money for the Time of Remembrance taking place in September.

The Time of Remembrance brings together Gold Star families, which are the immediate family members of a service member who died while serving in a time of conflict.

“Not everyone can relate to a Gold Star family, and I think that’s what’s really special about the Time of Remembrance,” tournament organizer Morgan Derington said. “We get a group of kids and their parents who have lost a dad or a mother overseas, and they (get the feeling) that they’re not alone.”

The tournament was started by local veterans of the Columbia Basin, honoring service member Jeremiah Schmunk, who was killed in action in Iraq in July of 2004.

“What (the tournament) does is, it brings in money for the Time of Remembrance,” Derington said, “which was started by Shirley, Jeremiah Schmunk’s mother.”

The golf tournament will be in its seventh year when it begins on Aug. 27, and has helped mitigate the costs of putting on the Time of Remembrance weekend. The memorial weekend is held in Tri-Cities, and brings together Gold Star families from across the state.

“It’s a weekend for Gold Star families,” Derington said. “If they have to be flown in, bused in, someone’s gotta go pick them up – no expense to the family whatsoever. It’s a weekend of healing.”

The four-person scramble style tournament will begin at 9 a.m. at the Sage Hills Golf Club in a shotgun start. Registration costs are $80 for a single golfer, or $320 for a foursome.

Along with registration costs, the tournament also has other means of raising money through sponsorships and donations.

“We also have $150 for a hole sponsor,” Derington said. “That just sponsors a hole, and the nice thing about the hole sponsors is that that $150 goes straight to the organization. The $80 for the golf tournament, $40 goes to the course, $15 goes to the lunch and at the end of the day $25 goes to us.”

Side games, prizes and raffles will also be present at the tournament. Sponsors are also available for some of the side events, Derington said.

“We also put a sponsor on the longest drive, closest to the pin and some others,” he said. “We have a marshmallow drive, where you got to drive the marshmallow. It’s pretty fun.”

Derington said that with advertising at the Grant County Fair this week they have already received interest, and they hope to see that turn into a solid turnout in his first year of running the tournament.

“I think not only to me, but to every veteran that’s going to be there – especially the guys that got to serve side-by-side to Jeremiah – it means the world,” Derington said. “It’s one of the coolest things.”

More information on the Time of Remembrance can be found at timeofremembrance.org.

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.