Golf Tourney

Where do we begin?  What can we say?  THANK YOU does not cover it - we were overwhelmed with the support we saw last Saturday at the golf tournament.  So much work, so many people involved, so many hugs, so many tears, so many laughs, SO MUCH FUN.

We have had requests for Les' "speech", so here it is. His new Dynavox machine read it for him, pretty cool!  By the way - the machine is PAID FOR, thanks to all those golfers.

"Before I begin, I just want to give a shout out to my friend Matt Kok.  Thanks for being here, Matt.  Your dad would have loved to golf today.

Good Afternoon Everyone!

  I just want to take a little time right now to just express my, and Karen’s gratitude for the love and support shown to us and our family thru this golf event today.  It’s difficult for me to find the right words to say to each and everyone of you.  You might say that I am literally speechless!    Get it?  That was a joke. I’m speechless?  HaHa!!

First off, I want to thank Zach Fralick for spearheading this thing and getting the ball rolling about seven months ago. You are a Great Man!  When Zach first contacted me about doing a golf tournament for me, I didn’t know what to say.  I had never been asked that kind of question before.  After thinking about it, I told him I’d be very honored and humbled by the gesture.  As long as it was a tournament “In honor of Les Kooistra” and not “In memory of Les Kooistra!”  But seriously, ‘thank you Zach’.  And along with him, I need to thank the other UPS people for their help and hard work.  Gunnar Birkeland, Ed Hansen,   Eric Stalder, Rick Williams and many more I’m sure.  You guys are awesome!  

And it was amazing that you got it all done on personal time!   And I have to thank their wives for giving them the time away from family to get it done.  Because I know family time for a UPS employee is a precious thing!    Thank You ladies!

And how could I not thank the Bierlink family!!  Rod, Lana, Lance and Cody.  You guys are great!!  You people must really love golf tournaments, because why else would you do all this??    You ROCK!!

 I want to thank my kids for your help in all of this too.  Leslie and Kris, you two have really impressed me with your work and time put in on this tournament.  Of course, when Leslie went to spend extra time at her office to work on this, Karen and I got to spend more time with our grandson Kaden!  Tough duty!!

I also want to thank my nephews and niece and my parents-in-law for your love and support. I love you guys.

And Karen, you have been my ROCK!  I don’t know how I could have gotten along this far without you by my side.  You certainly are a gift from God.  I LOVE YOU TONS AND TONS!!

And lastly, Thanks to all of you golfers and hackers out here today!  And to those of you that are not here to golf but are here to show your love and support.  This couldn’t have happened without all of you.  Thank You all so much from the bottom of my heart.  I love you all.    I AM A VERY BLESSED MAN!   THANK YOU! "

God blessed us with an amazing day!

Les' good friend Pastor Ben blessed us with a prayer both early morning and afternoon tee times

Les with Zach, Ed and Gunnar - hard working UPS buddies!

Les LOVED his ride for the day!

GOOD NEWS - Tomorrow, Thursday, Les will be getting Botox injected into his saliva glands, down at the UW.  We got in (unexpectedly!) 5 weeks early and we are so thankful!  The constant salivia in his mouth is a huge issue for him.  Please pray that this procedure helps.