Inside Baseball

As I have mentioned in these pages before, Texas Challenge approacheth. It looks to be the biggest affair we have done to date, which is saying something because several of them have been pretty impressive to me. As Central Texas Representative for the TXGA, I have several responsibilities involving the shebang. Obviously, I will be volunteering for some of the various duties in and around the Challenge and the surrounding Events. I may rope the girls in to help, too, but that’s up to them. Every year, there’s a raffle of baskets provided by the various regions with a certain amount of pride on the line regarding which one earns the most money (often it’s Central, but last year, I believe it was Southeast). I was captain of the Central team¹ for several years, but someone else has taken up that mantle this year. I’m going to be doing something a little different this year: I’m going to be observing and recording the various minutiae of the operation a bit more closely. I’d like to say that it’s for reporting purposes; I still feel bad about how terribly I bungled my last Mega, CacheFest Oklahoma. But it’s more than that. You see, every year, Challenge moves from region to region around the state. Last year, it was in Wichita Falls, the year before, Longview, and before that, Conroe, Cisco, Round Rock, and Seguin. Well, next year, it’s back in Central.

I am responsible, as Central Texas Representative, for putting on the 24th Annual Texas Challenge and Festival in 2026.

To say it’s a daunting task to put on a Mega-Event is an understatement, but that is the thought weighing most heavily on my mind. Certain wheels have already begun to turn in that direction (it takes quite a while to put on something like this). I’ve already started putting together a team for this. It’s far too much to do alone, and I learned the hard way from RoundUp a few years ago (no, you didn’t miss anything; I only made passing mention of it) that when you do everything yourself, you become a point of failure (I caught COVID that year and couldn’t even attend the Events I had arranged). Even looking at the task outline feels a bit overwhelming. But I’m not entirely unprepared for this undertaking. I’ve worked in project management before. I’m going to just have to put that hat on and plow through it. I will also admit that I’m not sure how my output will compare to this year’s Challenge; I know some of the things planned, and they will be a hard act to follow. But comparison will kill you, and better is the enemy of the good. We’re going to do this. I hope people will enjoy it. And you’ll probably hear about some behind-the-scenes stuff over the next year. But first, let’s get through this year in Floresville.

¹_{The thing that differentiates Texas Challenge from most Mega-Events is a competition element that HQ has only allowed because we’ve been doing it for so long.}