Here is my write-up and take on the 2nd Annual Nebraska Strongest Man. After a rainy start, the clouds parted ways and the day turned out to be a perfect sunny and 82 degree day, great strongman weather. Before I get to the events, I have to start off by thanking everyone that was involved. If I do forget someone, I do apologize and thank you more than you can imagine, but I believe I have everyone accounted for.
First off, thanks to all the competitors for putting on a great show and being patient until the rain stopped. Thanks to my beautiful wife for everything she did throughout the day, the days leading up to the event and just in general. 
To my partner in this event, Richard "Vince" Vincent. You did a great job with everything and especially the sponsors. To my judges, what an amazing job they did, Shawn Baier, Eric Todd, Bob Coco & Jason Bangs, for doing all you did all day, you guys kept things running very smoothly. To my loaders and spotters, Tonya, Chad, Jason, Billy, Ray & Scott, you all did an incredible job and worked your butts off all day, and to Shaun, what an incredible job you did selling raffle tickets.
To my mother, sister and brother-in-law, for running the raffle table, shirt sales, etc., to Cindy and Jake Gunia, for handling the parking situation. To Jesse Jobe, for letting me use his some of his equipment, to Scott Tully for his computer and being the head scorekeeper and Darren Barnhart for helping with judging and scoring. To Jimmy Jett, for singing the national anthem and the use of his sound system. To the American Legion, SAL & Auxiliary, for the use of their facility, and everything else they did. To the City of Papillion, for bringing in the cones and bleachers. To Red Bull, for supplying us with a competitor tent, tables and product. 
To Willie Wessels, for doing a phenomenal job on the microphone all day and helping me to load the truck before the show and unload after the show. To Vince's kids, for helping with giving out the awards and some crowd freebies. To all the sponsors that helped out with being the title sponsor, buying an event, raffle items or goody bag items, you all did an incredible job.
I cannot thank all of you enough as none of this could have happened without you.
And the most important thing of all was that through everyones help, we raised $3,000 for Camp CoHoLo. We are very happy about this as this is our purpose of putting on the show.
Now on to the contest. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new ones. I thought all the divisions were very competitive all day. The masters class saw Larry Kaiser get the win in the last event. The lightweight class also had a tie for first with the win going to Glenn Melnick, by way of a tiebreaker. The middleweight class saw Billy Duncan win, in a very close race. The heavyweights saw Jon Buettner win this division. In the lightweight women, Marilyn Mickey won with Hayley Bloom taking first place in the heavyweight women in her first show.
There were many performances that were impressive all day but a few that I saw that stuck out were 14yr. old Amy Doner gutting out the yoke for 60'. Amy had been having troubles picking the yoke up in training let alone taking it that far. Also, Shannon Bounds pushing through the sled drag, she never quit and finished the medley just in the time limit.
And finally Matt Selling. Matt's time expired in the medley and he still had 30' to go in the sled drag. Instead of just being done, he wanted to finish it for his own satisfaction, very impressive.
EVENTS:
Axle Press for Max.
Keg Carry for Distance (LW & Master 250#, MW 270#, HW 290#, Women 130#)
Farmers Walk-120' w/ one turn (LW & Master 240#, MW 270#, HW 300#, Women 110#)
Sandbag Load (Kegs for Women) (LW & Master 150#, 200#, 250#, MW & HW 200#, 250#, 300# Women 70#, 100#, 130#)
Super Medley-60'each Yoke, Duck Walk, Sled Drag (LW & Master 500#, 200#, 400#, MW 550#, 250#, 450#, HW 600#, 300#, 500#, Women 300#, 100#, 300#)
Here are the results:
Master
Larry Kaiser-15.5pts 1st
Tim Nassen-15pts 2nd
Tim Trumble-14.5pts 3rd
Bobby Bounds-5pts 4th
LW
Glenn Melnick-41pts 1st
Mac Capello-41pts 2nd
Corey Kenkel-33.5pts 3rd
Jesse Jobe-31pts 4th
Ryan Shaw-30.5pts 5th
Jason Bourgoin-30.5pts 6th
Mike Prewitt-23.5pts 7th
Kevin Lingenfelter-18.5pts 8th
Dave Brown-16.5pts 9th
Ron Langondoerfer-15.5pts 10th
MW
Billy Duncan-21.5pts 1st
Zack Best-20.5pts 2nd
Matt Tyler-12.5pts 3rd
Jason Oyler-11pts 4th
Sean Hatley-9pts 5th
HW
Jon Buettner-24pts 1st
Matt Baller-22pts 2nd
John Tilson-20pts 3rd
Dennis Craddock-16pts 4th
Matt Selling-12pts 5th
Frank Brown-10pts 6th
WOMEN LW
Marilyn Mickey-10pts 1st
Amy Doner-5pts 2nd
WOMEN HW
Hayley Bloom-19pts 1st
Mindy Capello-14pts 2nd
Stephanie Bounds-9pts 3rd
Shannon Bounds-8pts 4th
Also, there was one final award given out. The Nebraska Strongest Man gave out a lifetime achievement award to Joe Secord for everything he has done for strongman, especially in the Midwest. Joe began promoting meets in 2002 and held his last meet in 2005. He was really the first person to bring strongman to the NE/IA area. I felt he should be recognized in some way and was very happy to present him with the award.
As stated above, we raised over $3,000 for Camp CoHoLo between the raffle, t-shirt sales and donations. Thank you very much to all that helped make that happen. This will be enough to send 7 kids to camp.
Once again, thank you to everyone that helped make this contest run and we hope to see you all next year.
D.J.
