Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND – The Washakie Hospital Foundation’s fifth annual Badlands Poker Run, to benefit local community members diagnosed with cancer, is Saturday. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. at Rumors Sports Bar and Grill located at 1515 Big Horn Ave. in Worland with departure to the first stop at 10 a.m.

“One hundred percent goes right back to what it’s designated for; people receiving cancer therapies, to help offset some of the essential costs like food, travel and lodging when they have to travel out and get their cancer therapies. Zero percent goes to staffing costs or board costs. It doesn’t go to pay for salaries or staffing, 100 percent goes right back to what it was intended for,” Washakie Hospital Foundation board member and event organizer Keith Van Brunt said.

Van Brunt went on to explain that the Washakie Hospital Foundation has gifted about $10,000 to local cancer patients since last June. The gifts were given as $500 gifts, an iPad for the chemotherapy room at the hospital and $1000 worth of $100 gift cards that were provided to the infusion nurses at the hospital to give to patients receiving chemotherapy treatments.

Poker run participants will receive their first card at the Ten Sleep Saloon before traveling over the mountain to Buffalo to receive their second card at the Outback. At the Outback, participants will have a chance to play a rousing game of giant Jenga or two before heading to Meadowlark Lake Lodge for their third card. The Ten Sleep Brewery offers participants their fourth card with the fifth and final card being obtained back at Rumors.

Participants will be expected to arrive back at Rumors by 5:30 p.m. when the poker hands will be tallied and the person with the best and worst hands will receive a monetary prize. Van Brunt stated that paying out to the high and low hands is actually a theme for him. “When you actually take and look at cancer in and of itself, the high and lows are usually the only ones that get recognized, it’s either black or white, you beat it or you don’t beat it,” he said.

There will be a 50/50 raffle with half of the proceeds of the raffle only going to a winner and the other half going to the benefit and tons of door prizes for participants who purchased at least one poker hand. A live and silent auction, open to anyone who is interested, will also be held with many items donated by the community. Thanks to the reach that advertising on Facebook has, Van Brunt stated that the quality of the items to be auctioned has generated interest from people all over the country; Arizona, California and Florida, to name a few.

“I will have volunteers that are going to be there [Rumors] from the time we leave throughout the day, so people are more than welcome to come to Rumors throughout the day and look at the auction items and bid on them. I actually have some interest of people wanting to do online auctioning and people wanting to call in on some items because we have some really amazing items this year,” Van Brunt said. “People are welcome to come in after the run and we encourage them to. Yeah there will be a lot of bikers but bikers are big-hearted people. We have rough exteriors but inside we have hearts that weep with every loss from not only cancer but just about anything. It’s just a bunch of big-hearted people that love to ride and love to donate to a good cause and have probably donated more to charity then people give them credit for,” he added.

The event will occur no matter what the weather is that day. “The weather [forecast] a couple days ago was supposed to be like 83 and now it has dropped to 66 with a high percentage of rain. When you get cancer you go through bad weather, you go through bad times, not only physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and no matter what the weather is, we are going to ride for this cause because it’s going to be our honor. And we are going to cherish the fact that we can help lessen the discomfort and try to empathize with what they are going through, and if we can do that for a couple hours it’s a great way to honor what they go through for weeks, months and sometimes years,” Van Brunt stated.

All poker run participants will receive a commemorative poker chip and a tribal pattern bandana. “Everyone who buys a hand will get a bandana with a tribal pattern. The whole thing behind that is that we are a tribe, whether we like it or not, but we are a tribe, we are all one and we are here to support each other, in the good and in the bad and that’s what this poker run is all about helping those people in the bad times of their life that have been diagnosed with cancer,” Van Brunt said.

Van Brunt stated that the poker run is open to any type of vehicle that can make it to all the stops and return to Rumors by 5:30 p.m. He also stated that he has a friend who will be participating in the run in a Shelby Mustang.