Soaring Eagles Fundraiser Tournament
About this tournament
This will be a two-round unsanctioned tournament at Half-Moon Lagoon Disc Golf Course at Webb Park in Reedsburg, Wisconsin being hosted in partnership with Disconsin Disc Golf Club. All profits from this event will be put towards setting up a clinic in the spring of 2022 where Veterans, Active-Duty members of the military, and their loved ones can come, receive the basic equipment needed, and be introduced to the sport of disc golf at no cost to them. If you are interested in being a sponsor or a volunteer for either the Soaring Eagles Fundraiser Tournament or the Soaring Eagles Spring Clinic or if you are someone who is involved in the Veteran or Active Duty military communities who would be interested in serving as a contact, please reach out to Tournament/Clinic Director, Molly Orman at [email redacted].
More information on the play format, prizes, payouts, etc can be found here and will be added to as details are finalized: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1puwv7G78zPeYermWntodpSOGG35kZFzMJTCCRWxXgk0/edit?usp=sharing
We’ve chosen this date for the first Soaring Eagles Fundraiser Tournament for a very special reason. On the morning of December 12th, 1985 248 members of the 101st Airborne Division reboarded a plane in Gander, Newfoundland after a refueling stop. The Canadian layover was their second and last on a four-leg flight from Cairo to their home base of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The soldiers looked forward to returning home in time for Christmas after a six-month deployment as part of a multinational peacekeeping effort in Sinai, Egypt. Shortly after taking off the plane crashed less than a mile from the runway killing all 248 passengers as well as the 8 person crew. This remains the largest single-day, single-event loss of life that the storied 101st Airborne has ever faced.
As we began planning the Soaring Eagles Disc Golf Tournament and Clinic it was with thoughts of those who died that day but even more so we were thinking about the comrades and families who were faced with the monumental task of moving forward without those they'd lost. It's in their honor that we put on this event in the hope of sharing the sport we love with current and former members of the armed forces and their families as one small tool in their pursuit of physical, mental, and emotional health.
Our family has personal ties to the Store Air Flight 1285 tragedy but our state of Wisconsin is also closely tied in history to the 101st Airborne. The eagle on their division insignia is an image of Old Abe, the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment from the time of the Civil War. The bird was originally taken as a chick from a nest in an area that is now part of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest by a prominent member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa and then eventually sold to a member of the 8th regiment. It was in 1921 when the 101st Division was reconstituted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as part of the organized reserves that the“Screaming Eagle” became associated with the division as a nod to Wisconsin’s Civil War-era military history. In August of 1942 when the 101st Division was disbanded, reconstituted, and then reactivated as one of the first two Airborne Divisions Major General William C. Lee, read out General Order Number 5 which included this passage: “Let me call your attention to the fact that our badge is the great American eagle. This is a fitting emblem for a division that will crush its enemies by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies.”
Why Soaring Eagles?
A little over a year ago a pair of eagles started nesting somewhere near Half-Moon Lagoon and we'd see them frequently. I was startled by how quiet they are. I'm used to seeing hawks and ospreys in the wild which are both really noisy birds that seem to call for no reason whatsoever regularly. (Fun fact, every eagle you've ever heard in a movie was almost certainly the call of a Red-Tailed Hawk added as a sound effect.) After watching the wild eagles and when the little zoo in Baraboo took in a juvenile that couldn't be released our daughters and I did some research on them for homeschool. We learned that bald eagles are typically very quiet birds. They only vocalize loudly when there's something wrong. The only calls they make that could be considered a scream are to warn a human or another bird entering the area of their presence, to fend off attacks at communal feeding sites, or to alert their mate of a possible threat near their nest when they have young. So essentially, eagles only scream when they are "at war".
Our hope for all the participants in our clinic, be they active duty, veterans, or members of military families, is that in time they will be able to come to a place of true peace with whatever they're carrying as a result of their military experience and that they will not ever feel that they have to carry those things alone or that they're the only one experiencing those struggles. Whether disc golf eventually becomes a small part of building community and learning healthy coping tools for them or not, we hope that all of them can move forward from their service to be like the eagles at our course who are thriving and only ever seen soaring silently across the sky because where they live they feel no threat and never need to scream.
We want to thank all the participants, volunteers, sponsors, and supporters of this event in advance for their part in this project.
More information on the play format, prizes, payouts, etc can be found here and will be added to as details are finalized: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1puwv7G78zPeYermWntodpSOGG35kZFzMJTCCRWxXgk0/edit?usp=sharing
We’ve chosen this date for the first Soaring Eagles Fundraiser Tournament for a very special reason. On the morning of December 12th, 1985 248 members of the 101st Airborne Division reboarded a plane in Gander, Newfoundland after a refueling stop. The Canadian layover was their second and last on a four-leg flight from Cairo to their home base of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The soldiers looked forward to returning home in time for Christmas after a six-month deployment as part of a multinational peacekeeping effort in Sinai, Egypt. Shortly after taking off the plane crashed less than a mile from the runway killing all 248 passengers as well as the 8 person crew. This remains the largest single-day, single-event loss of life that the storied 101st Airborne has ever faced.
As we began planning the Soaring Eagles Disc Golf Tournament and Clinic it was with thoughts of those who died that day but even more so we were thinking about the comrades and families who were faced with the monumental task of moving forward without those they'd lost. It's in their honor that we put on this event in the hope of sharing the sport we love with current and former members of the armed forces and their families as one small tool in their pursuit of physical, mental, and emotional health.
Our family has personal ties to the Store Air Flight 1285 tragedy but our state of Wisconsin is also closely tied in history to the 101st Airborne. The eagle on their division insignia is an image of Old Abe, the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment from the time of the Civil War. The bird was originally taken as a chick from a nest in an area that is now part of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest by a prominent member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa and then eventually sold to a member of the 8th regiment. It was in 1921 when the 101st Division was reconstituted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as part of the organized reserves that the“Screaming Eagle” became associated with the division as a nod to Wisconsin’s Civil War-era military history. In August of 1942 when the 101st Division was disbanded, reconstituted, and then reactivated as one of the first two Airborne Divisions Major General William C. Lee, read out General Order Number 5 which included this passage: “Let me call your attention to the fact that our badge is the great American eagle. This is a fitting emblem for a division that will crush its enemies by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies.”
Why Soaring Eagles?
A little over a year ago a pair of eagles started nesting somewhere near Half-Moon Lagoon and we'd see them frequently. I was startled by how quiet they are. I'm used to seeing hawks and ospreys in the wild which are both really noisy birds that seem to call for no reason whatsoever regularly. (Fun fact, every eagle you've ever heard in a movie was almost certainly the call of a Red-Tailed Hawk added as a sound effect.) After watching the wild eagles and when the little zoo in Baraboo took in a juvenile that couldn't be released our daughters and I did some research on them for homeschool. We learned that bald eagles are typically very quiet birds. They only vocalize loudly when there's something wrong. The only calls they make that could be considered a scream are to warn a human or another bird entering the area of their presence, to fend off attacks at communal feeding sites, or to alert their mate of a possible threat near their nest when they have young. So essentially, eagles only scream when they are "at war".
Our hope for all the participants in our clinic, be they active duty, veterans, or members of military families, is that in time they will be able to come to a place of true peace with whatever they're carrying as a result of their military experience and that they will not ever feel that they have to carry those things alone or that they're the only one experiencing those struggles. Whether disc golf eventually becomes a small part of building community and learning healthy coping tools for them or not, we hope that all of them can move forward from their service to be like the eagles at our course who are thriving and only ever seen soaring silently across the sky because where they live they feel no threat and never need to scream.
We want to thank all the participants, volunteers, sponsors, and supporters of this event in advance for their part in this project.
Refund policy
Disconsin Disc Golf Club is responsible for all refunds/cancellations. Full refunds are available until December 10th. After December 10th full refunds will only be given if a waitlisted player takes the available spot. If their spot is unable to be filled, they will receive their event disc via mail. Players ordering shirts who need to withdraw last minute will not be refunded the cost of their shirt even if their player's spot is filled and will instead have it shipped to them. Players on the waitlist who do not get bumped up to play will receive a full refund on the day of the event.
Half-Moon Lagoon