Christmas With a Capital "C"

GO MU

Fund Raiser for Show-Me Hustle Baseball Team

Smokin' Mills will be smokin Oct. 6th.

For every slab of ribs ordered, we will donate $8.
For every 1 LB. of meat ordered, we will donate $4.
For every dozen wings, we will donate $2.

Visit www.smokinmills.com for complete menu.

Visit www.showmehustle.com to keep up with the team.

Place your orders and help support the team.

Thank you for your support, Show-Me Hustle.
Leave comment to place order or e-mail mill424@mchsi.com

25 Years

Well, another fair has come and gone. 25 of them for me. Started in 1983 by helping out Dan Fortner and Jim White. I have seen a lot of changes in this time. Most of them for the good. I have made a lot of friends and lost a few at the fair. Met my wife working at the fair, 22 years ago. My mom even worked the fair for a few years before she passed away. She sat at Gate 8 everyday from 8am to 12pm.

The fair is a fun place to work. It is not about the money, but seeing people, having fun and making new friends. I am able to keep up with old friends from high school. Some people I met at the fair and only see them during the fair.

Gate 1 used to be a drive-in gate. Right down in front of the barns and to the parking lot. You could also park in side Gate 2 along the fence. Gate 5 has been moved twice since I have been there. The old gate five is not open anymore. The next Gate 5 is now the exit and the new Gate 5 is Smith Street. Gate 9 and 10 have been added. We only went to 8.

For new comers or younger folks, there was a ½ mile asphalt racetrack and grandstand where the E-Plex, new grandstand and parking lot now stand. There is a light pole still standing in the parking lot on the east side of the E-Plex that was the entrance to turn 1.

The Pit Stop (charbroil stand) use to be open 24 hours. Best place to get a burger and fries as well as biscuits and gravy in the morning.

I spent the first 23 years parking cars, taking tickets, barriers, supervision, basically anything that needed to be done. Gate 7 was my favorite, except for the year at Gate 1 where I met Sam. The last two years have been spent working the Grandstand and backstage area. This is even more fun than working the parking lots and taking tickets. Each day brings new and different people. Some of the artists are fun and some are not so fun. Some you never see until show time and then they are gone. To bad for them, they do not know what they are missing. So far, Blake Shelton and Craig Morgan have been the best to work with. Blake spent 2 days with us. On the second day when they stepped off the bus said "we are heading to Rudy’s for slaw dogs, we’ll be back".

Of course, there is no way I could make the backstage work without my team. Sam, Hillen, Rog, Lotz, the Rog boys, Burch and the Hall boys. This year we added Lightning McQueen. Plus all of the gang that ushers in the grandstand each night. Thank you for all your help.

I do not know if I will make it another 25 years, but I will try...

Smokin on the 4th

Place your order for Brisket and Ribs for the 4th of July. Food will be ready to pick Wednesday by 5:00, just in time for dinner and fireworks that night. See http://thesmokinmills.blogspot.com/ for menu. Place orders by commenting or e-mail mills424@mchsi.com .

This is the real thing...

Maybe in few years, Buddy will have one of these with his name on it. Thanks Kirk for letting us see the 2006 world series ring and for letting Buddy put it on.

Fun at the ballpark

2006 World Champs

!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!

1 Rating and 1st Place in Jr. High Jazz Festival

!! GREAT JOB !!

Well the 2007 season is here. Buddy played good this weekend. The fences are 201 feet in Fordland, he hit one in to the wind (at lest 25 mph) that went 195 feet. He did manage to get a triple, even with his not so blinding speed.

Do you know someone that would like to sponsor a local baseball team?

This team has been together for the last 4 years. All of these boys live on the north side and will attend Hillcrest in 5 years. Our plan is to build a team that will win the State High School Championship sometime in the their high school career. If you click on this link http://show-mehustle.blogspot.com/ you can see our web page. This has all of our stats as well as pictures of how much fun we have. You can also see on the right side, we have a links to our sponsors. We also carry a banner with all of our sponsors listed on it and it hangs on the dugout at each game.

This year, we are moving from the park board up to USSSA / AA level. We will be playing in at least 5 tournaments from Fordland to Kansas City. If we qualify, we may even attend the AA World Series in Lenexa KS.

If you or someone you know would like to sponsor with a cash donation, you can make it out to Show-Me Hustle and we can make arrangments to pick it up.

Thank you, Show-Me Hustle

Who needs a professional...

when you have a teenage daughter. That is a 15 foot extension ladder and she is about 10 feet above that. Thanks Kayla for pulling down broken limbs. Now if I can teach her how to use a chainsaw and climb a tree...

Well, the Ice is gone, now if the limbs would leave

Jan. 2007

Sat. - Tues.

Two more days of ice and more limbs coming down. Just in case you are wondering, the smoker is just fine, no limbs have hit it yet. There is snow coming the weekend.

Friday Jan. 12th, 2007 Not just another night in Springfield...

This is what it looked like in Springfield Mo. on Saturday Jan. 13th. 75,000 out of 109,000 Utility customers out of power. Drove to Chestnut and Glenstone before we saw any lights. Braums, Krispy Kreme, Mongolian BBQ and the stop light were the only thing on. Hand to go to Kansas and 44 to find anything else on. Walmart, McDonalds, and a couple of gas stations were on. Everyone was in line for gas and coffee. We spent the weekend days at DMP watching tv and playing games. The Mills house was without power until Wednesday, Jan. 17th. The water heater is gas, so we had hot water. With the fire place, we were able to heat the house until Sunday. Temps dropped and we had to block off the living room from the rest of the house. We kept the fire going 24/7. It was about 65 during the day. The nights were getting colder. The hallway was 49 on Wednesday morning. Sam and the kids made it until Tuesday and then they went to my aunts. I stayed with the house and the animals. There are about 20,000 houses still out of power and it is down to basically house to house connection. Some of the folks at work are still without power. We were fortunate that none of the limbs fell on our power lines. They are now calling for 4-6 inches of snow for the weekend.

Christmas with the other Mills

2006 Was a Good Year

It was a good year for the Mills family. Mom and dad went to Vegas for their anniversary, Show-Me Hustle won the City Championship, Lizzie got to play some softball, got a great trip to NYC, had to much fun to put in one blog, the girls got to see Faith and Tim while the boys (and Kayla) went to see the soon to be 2006 World Series Champs, moved in to a new house, got to hang with some stars at the fair and had a good holiday season with Sam's family.

ESPN Zone

4 ESPN Zones in one year. Can you name the 4 cities?