This year’s annual Gila Christmas Party was hosted at Coach Peter‘s house.  The night’s festivities included a White Elephant Gift Exchange, Potluck Dinner, Ugly Sweater Contest, and Live Music from a number of our very own Gilas.  There was also a 70/30 raffle, Canned Food Drive for charity, Win-the-Jar-of-Mints by guessing the correct number.  A HUGE Shout-out to Coach Peter for hosting the party and to Tamra for spearheading the hugely successful night!

In addition to the festivities, there were a number of important announcements:

• Farewell to John Glitsos/Balinda Strosnider – they will be relocating to the White Mountains to pursue their passion with the new Raptor Flight Show, featuring Funky the Owl.  The Gila’s presented John with a beautiful commemorative hand-painted Gila paddle made by Tamra

• The 2021 Gila MVP award presented to Michele Laye – for all of her contributions to both the Gila’s and AZDBA as the we came out of the pandemic

• Acknowledgment to new Gila, Emily Sedillo for the outstanding work on the new Gila Website (we no longer have to look forward to the upcoming 2014 season!)
• Acknowledgment of the longest standing Gila Julie Hensley (who was around during the Coach Chen era), and newest Gila Phil Isaak (who arrived last month from Vancouver, here for the winter)

• For the upcoming 2022 season, Gila festival participation planning is somewhat tentative as many festivals are still trying to figure out their COVID situation.  Venue’s that were suggested were Vancouver, Portland, South Carolina, Chicago, Toronto, Orlando, and possibly Hawaii as the destination for our Gila 20th anniversary celebration.