THANK you to everyone who attended the Aleppo Smoker 2018 and made it such a huge success. What a great night. We started out with everyone receiving roughly 20 cigars just for presenting their ticket.
Once inside the Auditorium, the scotch and bourbon tasting were ready to go. Riverwalk Brewery served up some of their newest beers and drained their kegs in short order. The guys from Big Rock Oyster were shucking oysters as fast as possible to keep up with the complementary Raw Bar. Our caterer, Sidekim Foods were able to serve well over 600 prime rib dinners all seemingly at the same time. After dinner there were a couple “short” speeches, donations from Columbian Lodge, Colette Vacations, Ancient York Lodge, and “Thank You” from our Illustrious Potentate, Harlan L. Woods, Jr.
The highlight of the evening came to the stage, Noble Jamie Jordan. For those of you not in attendance, you may not know that Noble Jordan was a patient at Shriner’s Hospitals for Children. Jamie ran up on stage and told us all his story and his need for help from the World’s Greatest Philanthropy – our Hospitals. He ended his heart-warming speech by letting us know that thanks to the Shriners Hospitals and events like the Aleppo Smoker, he was able to live a much better life with his wife and daughters. Jamie left the stage to a standing ovation.
Jamie was a tough act to follow, but comedian Mike McDonald was awesome. Mike kept everyone’s attention, and the crowd roared at some of his jokes. After Mike entertained us, he stayed on stage to help Steve DeOssie with our Auction. As I said, the night was great. If you were at the event, you know about all the fun and games that go on at the Smoker–the auctions, silent auctions, entertainment, prizes, games, etc. The whole night is great, whether you’re a cigar smoker or not. Believe it or not, quite a few nonsmokers show up every year just to enjoy the evening and help our worthy cause.
Thank you to Steve Strauss, owner of Pleasant Smoke our #1 Sponsor since we started. Thank you to all of our sponsors, vendors, and attendees who came out for the event, spent money on tickets, overbid on auction items, and made generous donations. What you did was to make this the biggest Aleppo Smoker on record, and you donated close to $70,000.00 to the Aleppo Shriners Children’s Transportation Fund. Yup, the Aleppo Smoker is Still Wicked Awesome!!
