Congratulations to Tim Buechele of Loranger & Wayne Gauthreaux of Hammond , the Winners of the final “Big Mike Raffle.” The two bought a total of 4 tickets, but as good friends they opted to double their chances by adding both names to all 4 tickets!

Tim is a skater from waaaay back, his first deck a GT model some 20-plus years ago! He parked his deck a long time ago, though, due to a left ankle blow-out and an addiction to Harley-Davidson motorcycles and building bikes. Tim is a regular at Dreamland Skatepark in the summer, supporting his 11 yr/old son’s passion for skating and has recently started trying to skate again with the help of an ankle brace.

Wayne has dabbled with skating on and off and also frequents Dreamland with his son Tyler, age 8. Wayne too has been caught “boosting” his son’s deck, but now he’ll roll with class!
Tim & Wayne both work at Hammond Harley Davidson.

Huge props go out to Tim and Wayne from Hammond Harley Davidson, who contributed to our money raising efforts, and lucked out by winning a huge stack of goods!

I should have some pics soon!

The official deadline to win this stuff is May 28. Come in, plunk down five bucks, and win the whole stash.

This is the very last Big Mike Raffle… come give it one last shot while there’s still time! Enter as may times as you can for better odds!

Before I leave you with that, here’s an edit I made off of some slightly older footage that has a good portion of Big Mike’s backyard ramp in it. We had shown up late, so we don’t have footy of him skating in this clip, but he had been ripping it the entire day before we showed up.

Anyway, please give this final raffle a shot. All of the funds will go directly to the Big Mike Trust, which will in turn go directly to Mike’s wife Darlene and son Erik (who also happens to be another skater to the bone).

Thanks.

This is a student film, created by Brandi Matthews and Stacey Winokur. It almost looks like a news broadcast… anyway, we’re pretty stoked on the way it came out.

Remember that we owe skateboarding everything, skateboarding owes us nothing.

My camera sucks, and I wasn’t able to get to the jam towards the end (when most of the folks had left, but there were still lots of people out)… the main reason I’m posting all my pics (the bad ones included) is to show everyone how incredibly bad ass our community is, and how insanely great the Big Mike crew is… they put this together, brought out a ton of food and drinks, and on this day, everyone rolled in honor of our friend. My ankle is blown out, but I felt so charged by the energy that everyone had Saturday that I bet my healing process is going to be faster than normal. Skaters and non skaters alike came together and showed some love. It doesn’t get any better than that. Here you go:

Stay tuned, as our very own Small Times’ Gregory took some much better pics earlier on when the jam was in full effect… as soon as he sends them over, I’ll have ‘em up on the site… his pics will give you a much better idea of how hectic and incredible the day was.

Here’s to you, Mike. Roll forever, brother.

…but just in case you don’t, the new batch of Big Mike decks is in, coinciding with this very special Saturday that we’d all like to spend commemorating to our friend.

We’re also close to wrapping up our fundraising efforts, and all of us at Small Times want to give props to the skateboard community, the WHOLE skateboard community (international, even) for the support and respect they’ve given to our bro.

Thanks to everyone that gave something… from money, to product, to moral support. Skateboarders are part of a family, and if we aren’t looking out for each other, noone else will.

Thanks homies and homettes.

The culture and geography is something we can’t relate to, but skateboarding is a thread that runs through us, binding us all together. You may have seen a glimpse of this before on Mike V’s television show Drive, but I encourage you to dig in and check out The Uganda Skateboard Union.

Skateboarding isn’t sponsorship, it isn’t a long trick list, nor is it a fashion show. The kids from Uganda (featured in video and throughout the site) know what it’s all about… fun.

I want to skate that mini, too.

First of all, we want to thank EVERYONE for entering the 2nd Big Mike Raffle… as you already know, all the money collected went directly into the Big Mike Trust set up by the shop, and the winner of the contest got more skate gear than anyone would know what to do with… just tons of stuff. For a reminder of what the winning prize-stash contained, click here.

Well, March 1st (after the shop closed) was the deadline and the prize-winning drawing… I meant to put all this up before going to bed last night, but I’m a bum, so I apologize to anyone who stayed up waiting for me to post this.

Here’s a full-on photo essay of how it went down:

Mr. Gregory Tracey, winner of the first raffle, was given the magical raffle box and asked to pull out a random winner… here we can see that Gregory took great joy in shakin’ that thang like a salt shaker:

…but shaking the box isn’t good enough. To ensure complete randomness, the raffle box had to be drop-kicked (like we did during the first raffle). No raffle entries were harmed during the kicking of the box:

(Interesting note: Chuck Norris based his fighting technique on Gregory’s martial arts skills. Wait, I’m telling a lie. Sorry.)

…Gregory looked up to the sky (which was blocked by the shop’s ceiling) and rummaged through the raffle box the same way I rummage through the dryer trying to find matching socks.

\\\{{{(((::: WINNER :::)))}}}///

Stoked! Long time friend of the shop, Mr. Zach Anthony, was smiled upon by fate, and officially became the winner of the biggest raffle we’ve had yet! I blurred out his phone number so nobody would try to call him and try to bum any fresh gear from him. I have the number though, so maybe I’ll do it instead. (KIDDING).

As you can tell in this photo, it caused Gregory a great deal of physical pain and anguish to tell someone that they’d just won hundreds of dollars worth of gear. It’s not that he wanted the stuff for himself, he just wanted to wallow in it for a little while, hugging and caressing the decks, DVDs, hats, wheels, and shirts. Greg’s funny like that.

Seriously though, Greg called up Zach, and a few minutes later Zach and his crew came over to enjoy the bounty:

There is a LOT of stuff in that box… I’d be shocked too!

A good photo of Zach, this round’s big winner.

Something really interesting that I want to share with everyone about Zach’s win… Zach entered a few times (like many others did), but while at the shop yesterday, he entered one more time just for the hell of it… it turns out that the entry he put in yesterday was the winning ticket! How insane is that?

Anyway, CONGRATS ZACH!!! Enjoy all the new gear, and thanks for helping out with the cause! As we all know, the prizes are awesome, but it’s the reason we’re having these raffles that’s the most important thing.

Thanks to everyone that contributed, we were able to collect $355.00!

The next raffle begins in ONE WEEK! BE READY!