2015 Kyle receives JJ Keller Foundation Scholarship at Red Smith Banquet
It was a proud night last night for the Van Hammond family on Tuesday night when Kyle received the scholarship from the JJ Keller Foundation at the Red Smith Banquet last night. With about 1,000 people at the event, Kyle got called onstage as they introduced him. You can see most of what they read about him on Post Crescent today:
The Red Smith Banquet is an event that I (Tim) have attended in the past; it is really a who-is-who in Wisconsin sports and is just fun to attend. This year had a few notable speakers on stage that were awesome to hear:
Doug Melvin of the Brewers : http://www.postcrescent.com/story/sports/2015/01/21/doug-melvin-happy-brewers-trade-haul/22093853/
The Milwaukee Bucks President, Peter Feigin who spoke about the new, younger Bucks and the new excitement around them.
Mark Murphy of the Packers which was really interesting in light of the disappointing loss the Packers just suffered last weekend to Seattle!
Mike Jirschele, the Kansas City Royals third base coach who was in the World Series this past year and from Clintonville
There were also notables from the TimberRattlers, the Gamblers, Wisconsin Badgers, and UWGB. I was really excited because my boyhood hero, Oscar Robertson was the recipient of the Mr. Nice Guy Award. (http://www.postcrescent.com/story/sports/2015/01/21/robertson-knows-packers-fans-feeling/22093863/) While I was so hopeful to get the Big 'O's autograph, things didn't quite work out for me and I left with my old Oscar Robertson basketball card from 1974 UNSIGNED! (sigh)
But this night was about Kyle (from our perspective). There were scholarship recipients from the various Appleton High Schools and Kyle represented Xavier High School.
We were really happy to find out that the recipient for Appleton North was Jeff Steers. Jeff is a great kid and has been a friend of Kyle for many years having gone to middle school together. Jeff's dad and I are high school classmates and we were very happy for Mike and Vicki too!
As I said, Kyle received the scholarship from the JJ Keller Foundation along with Danielle Voss from Fox Valley Lutheran (below). It was an honor for Kyle to be presented with this by Jim Keller and his wife Rosanne. Dinner was great and we all got to hear a really fun story of JJ Keller sponsoring the youngest winner of the Iditarod, Dallas Seavey
