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More money, more money

Good year for Brown Trout leads committee to give groups a bonus

ALPENA — The 2017 Michigan Brown Trout Festival was one of the most successful in recent memory, according to festival President Peggy Donakowski. Because of that the Brown Trout committee was able to give more money to the service groups that helped run the event.

Donakowski said all of the events and tournaments were well received, especially the walleye tournament, Bay Bash and the other nights there was live entertainment in the big tent. After the money was counted and the bills paid, Donakowski said there was enough left to give each organization an extra $500 to increase the donation to $2,000.

“We haven’t been able to do that in about 10 years. she said. “It was a great year and the festival was a great success and it allowed us to do a little more.”

Donakowski said plans for this year’s festival, which will be the 44th, already are being made and there will be popular events that will return, as well as a few new ones. She said the committee is partnering with WATZ to bring a country night event and the wine tasting event will be expanded. Despite the popularity of the various tournaments, Donakowski said each one is evaluated every year and new ones are considered. She said the committee wants to see the registrations go up and believes the way to achieve that is to have bigger payouts for the winners.

“We want to continue to increase the payouts,” Donakowski said. “We have been doing it for the last few years, little by little every year, because we know that it help to attract more fishermen and fisher ladies. Having Big Brownie caught this year is also going to help I think.”

In order to host a 10 day festival it takes hard work from members of the committee, but also many volunteers. Donakowski said there were enough volunteers last year, but it would have been nice to have more. She said this year it already is clear more will be needed.

One volunteer position that needs to be filled is recording secretary. That person is responsible for taking meeting minutes and presenting them at the following meeting. Donakowski said during the event the secretary will work in the registration trailer and help sign up fishers and other basic secretary duties.

Additional volunteers also are going to be needed for the wine tasting event, Donakowski said.

“We had a lot of people really step up last year, but we are looking for more for different areas,” she said. “As the event gets closer we’ll know how many we will need and where we will need more help.”

For more information, or to volunteer call Donakowski at 590-2480

Steve Schulwitz can be reached via email at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5689. Follow Steve on Twitter ss_alpenanews.

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