Recently, I began attempting anything that wanders into my daydreams. When I started working on my site I wanted to do something to get our downtown to participate in something together that would spark citywide participation. I love our downtown, and I feel that if we could get our citizens fired up about it, we could be eventually something to attract tourists on a larger scale.
One of my first ideas was a Bartender Brawl. There are sin-water slingers at every restaurant down here that have loyal regulars. I’m a loyal regular of some local establishments myself. I think that if you have a great experience somewhere that everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy it. Pretty much everyone wins. I wanted to do it American Idol Style at first, where people voted and the winner gets some cool prize, liked a completely stocked home bar. I may still attempt to do something like that, if I were able to pull off such a prize. I daydreamed about this event for weeks, and even started telling close friends about the idea. It never occurred to me how soon I would bring my dream to life.
As we all know, Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas were demolished from the storms in May. When I came home the day the tornado hit Moore, my husband was sitting on the couch with his eyes glued to CNN. I joined him as we watched the rubble from the school, homes, and businesses. We thought about those children and cried. Eventually we couldn’t take any more and went to bed, both visibly shaken from what we watched all evening. (See pics here.)
The next morning I was sifting through the mail and came upon a package addressed to me. I had ordered wooden charm necklace weeks before, and it had finally come. I put it on, and after staring at it resting there, I decided that I was going to give my Bartender Brawl a try.
On my way to work I started messaging musicians on Facebook and sent out a call for musicians willing to donate their time. I called my friends and they responded enthusiastically, asking what they could do to help. My amazing coworkers at Rightmind immediately set to work building a logo and named the event. It had never occurred to me that I needed to call it something. Alex showed me a logo with the words “Hope For Moore,” and on that rainy day our benefit was born.
In two weeks we ran our butts off getting donations and assistance. We got our emcee, three bartenders, our venue, our bands and a lot of advertising. With support of Fort Smith citizens and those who even traveled from Oklahoma we raised $4179.76! This amount is from the door donation, raffle, bartender’s tips, t- shirt sales, and a portion of beer sales. It was an impressive turnout for a Thursday night. I’m still riding off the high from it’s success.
There are so many people to thank. This was much bigger than I planned, and I had such a good experience working with everyone that I would love to do this again, possibly a yearly charity event.
First I want to thank my boss Chad and my coworkers at Rightmind Advertising. Working here has given me the necessary skills and contacts when it comes to planning an event, and I was beyond grateful that our graphic designers took the time to help build a logo, t-shirt, website, and flyers to make this event memorable. I actually plan on framing our flyer in my office. I’ve always been so proud of their work and consider it an honor to work with such creative people. Anyone would be lucky to spend 40+ hours a week with your dirty jokes, farts, and crude drawings. Seriously though, I love you guys to death.
It may have taken my husband a bit to catch on to what I was doing, but once he realized that I was serious he was on board and supportive. Thanks for keeping an eye on Blake while I ran around the city. Thanks for listening to me when I needed you. Thanks for solving the last-minute beer problem.
Because I have a deep-rooted hatred for the sound of my voice, I never planned on hosting this event. I wanted to make sure I could just spend the night walking around with a beer in my hand, and not worry about how ridiculous I look onstage. My obvious choice was to call the guys in from Naturally Improvable. I never once considered other possible Emcee. I was blown away at how excited they were to help out, and impressed at how they publicized the event on their own. They took Facebook advertising to a level I was not aware of, and we got results. They did end up pulling me on the stage where I suddenly was too modest to say a dirty word in the microphone, but I had a blast. The crowd loved them, they are hilarious, and they did a great job! It felt good to look around the crowd and see people enjoying local comedians. It takes a lot of balls to go onstage and talk about what you believe in, and to make it funny. We have so much talent here, and hopefully the people who saw them for the first time will see them in their future shows.
Racha from Racha’s Boutique
Me and Mr. Hensley
We got our first confirmed artist, Carter Sampson about five days after the tornadoes hit. This Edmond native, “The Queen of Oklahoma,” comes to Fort Smith and plays quite a bit. She is a personal favorite of mine, and I was so fortunate to have her come up for a night in between her loading her RV with supplies to take to tornado victims, and playing a tour of free shows in support. This girl is a badass. About four or five days before the show, we completed our lineup with Oklahoma bands War Pony and Judge Parker. When we told people that they were coming, attendance skyrocketed. This was my first time to experience both bands, but when they came on stage I immediately knew why. They rock out hard, and you can tell they enjoy doing it. The crowd loved them, I loved them, there is no way we would have had as much success as we did without these musicians. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Come back and play Fort Smith soon.
Von, Me, Jeff, and Dar
I also want to thank the bartenders for making my little daydream a reality. I had three of the most well-known bartenders in the city, Darlene K. from Sake Sushi & Martini Bar, Von C. from Rolando’s and Jeff P. from The Movie Lounge.
The three of them raised over a thousand dollars and did a great job, especially coming into a foreign bar with a different system. You guys were amazing, thank you a million times over for participating!
A HUGE THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AND VOLUNTEERS! You made this big for us, and in a short amount of time! Thank you so much! 
Friday, June 28th at 8:00pm we will be presenting a check to American Red Cross with the benefits going towards all those affected in the storms. Rib Room was gracious enough to host my cause once again, so I hope to see everyone out to conclude our hard work.
I am honored to have had the help of so many people in doing this. Honestly, when you think about everyone included, I don’t really feel like I did too much. My heart is full and spilling over with the kindness of others. What a lucky girl I am.
– Shannon Hensley / Freelance Writer / TTDIFS ThatGirlWithThe.com