LAURINBURG —Despite opening the season late, this year’s baseball and softball season for the Optimist Club of Laurinburg ended successfully.
“It was over really quick,” said President Chuck Witmore. “We got a late start due to COVID and the governor not opening up the state until later in the spring than our season usually starts so we packed our season into six weeks. Our main goal was just to get the kids something to do after being cooped up for a year.”
Despite the short season, Witmore said all those involved enjoyed it. Overall, there were 32 teams that participated which were more than had been drafted in the 2020 season before it had been canceled which was the first time Optimist hadn’t had a season since the 1960s.
“We’ve had as low as 30 and as many as 45 teams,” Witmore said. “Anything over 40 teams we have to add an extra night, so it worked out well this year … we’re really thankful to all of our sponsors, field sponsors, team sponsors, because without them we wouldn’t have been able to have a season.”
Now that the season is done Optimist is working on recruiting more volunteers and members.
“We’ve been meeting weekly since March and we hope to start having programs again maybe in the late summer or fall,” Witmore said. “We’d like to have our banquet this year as well, since we didn’t get to have that last September … we have an open-door policy and we’re ready to take anyone who is interested in being a new member. We are actively enrolling as many members as we can because we have the fish fry, baseball and the Christmas tree lot they’re all labor-intensive and we need people to help us keep those running smoothly.”
The next event the club has lined up is the Phillip Hayes Memorial Softball Tournament which helps raise scholarship money that is given to local students since all of the money from the tournament goes to the scholarship.
Those interested in becoming a member of the Optimist Club of Laurinburg should email [email protected].
Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected].