Barry,

You make excellent points and for kids the age of Atticus it is valid. My son however is 10 and most of the kids in Wisc are younger. He was not comfortable in traveling 12 hours away from home without me. Therefore my costs are valid. I know a few kids that young went on the bus, but obviously not many made it then up to Wisc.

Also consider for your cost justification to be valid you must add the cost of the camp, (I think that is the only way to ride the bus), gas to and from Hays. and food money for kid for the week. So add about another $300-$350 minimum. That brings the cost to about $600 anyway. That does help with the parent time off work.

Your point about the New Mexico kids having to travel in the past is valid. That is why I believe we need more regionals. Dont you think more kids would attend if the tournament was within 4-5 hours? The problem is KS, MO, and OK must support the rest of the region. If you pulled them out and had a smaller region NM and others like it would starve. KS had 60 kids in NM more than any other state. All I am saying is to have more qualifying options just like Fargo. As my son gets older I am sure I can send him alone but they are not catering to their younger customers and arent these the future of our cadet and JR. teams.

The other thing to consider it the location of Nationals was moved even farther north. Putting more stress on the locations and cost of the regionals.

These are just my opinions, not right or wrong. But there is some validity to it if we only have 8-10 KS in Wisc.

Thanks for listening,

Mike Pursel