Ready For Her Closeup

I got a phone call from my mother last week on Monday, and was met with an odd greeting and an inordinately excited tone in her voice – “I’m not really sure yet what exactly is going on, but Leslie [my youngest sister] is going to be on TV.” At first I figured, yeah, ok, she’s going to be on the local news for her FFA or 4-H or drill team activities – but that wasn’t the case, and as we got more information and figured out more of the circumstances, it was actually a much bigger deal than either of us imagined.

There is a gentleman in Austin named Bill Blodgett who runs an organization called Majesty Outdoors, which is focused on finding teenagers who, for one reason or another, do not have a father in their life, and giving them a connection to the outdoors. They go on hunting and fishing excursions, and get to learn a lot about wildlife and the environment. Through a convoluted (yet fortuitous) turn of events, Leslie got the opportunity this past weekend to go on an adventure with Mr. Blodgett and his crew. The trip was filmed, and will be aired as the 12th episode in the currently-running 13 episode season of “Majesty Outdoors”, the organization’s television show airing on the Versus channel.

Mr. Blodgett and his wife/show chaperone Susan met Leslie and I in Austin for lunch on Friday before the trip. I could tell immediately that they were great people, and felt completely comfortable with handing my sister off to them for the weekend. Of course, there are times I’d be perfectly willing to shove her into the custody of train-hopping vagrants, but as she’s currently on my good side, I was happy to see that she’d be spending the weekend with a great couple like the Blodgetts. They took her to Corpus Christi Friday and stayed until Sunday, where she did a little fishing, learned a lot about the Texas Parks and Wildlife conservation efforts, spent some time behind the scenes at the aquarium, and scored some cool swag from the organization’s sponsors.

To make it even better, this upcoming weekend a party is bring thrown for all of the featured teens at Bass Pro Shop in San Antonio to film a reunion episode/season finale. So Leslie will be featured on one episode, and likely seen in another episode immediately following, both of which should air on Versus sometime in March. She had such a good time and they enjoyed her so much that they’ve also invited her along on a trip to go fishing off the Louisiana coast this summer.

I’m not a particularly religious person, and I don’t know how much I buy into the whole “everything happens for a reason” idea, but it is really uncanny the way the past week transpired for Leslie to get to do this. Majesty Outdoors is, at its core, a type of youth ministry program. Another trip had been planned, but there were cancellations, so this one to Corpus was kind of put together last minute as a replacement, and they were really on the line to find a kid to take along. Through a friend’s brother they found out about Leslie, and after a whirlwind of phone calls and e-mails she was in. It was a perfect trip for her – we have access to places to go hunting, so a fish-aimed trip was something new for her. She had been thinking lately about a future with TPW, so it was great for her to get this kind of exposure. Plus Mr. Blodgett has the same college degree Leslie has been considering, he used to raise pigs, he used to play baseball (and was drafted by the same team that drafted our cousin), and his wife is big into bow hunting – Leslie just fit in so well with them it was almost bizarre. Even as skeptical as I am, I have to think there was somebody or something pulling the strings here for Leslie to luck into such a cool opportunity so tailored to her and her future.

Check out the website for Majesty Outdoors here. They’re truly great people with a great purpose.

Sarcasmo

PS – For those of you who know Leslie, or as you can glean from the fact that she is my sister . . . she has been exactly as big of a pain in the butt about all of this as you can imagine. She showed up to our Superbowl part halfway through the first quarter, apologizing for her lateness and blaming the paparazzi. But it’s actually been pretty hilarious, and she absolutely deserves the trip and all the attention she’s gotten.