World Euchre Championship draws players to New Glarus

Angela Fitzgerald:Every summer in New Glarus, a card game takes center stage.

Jess Villiger:Euchre!

Carson Crochet:Euchre!

Dan Ziegler:Welcome to the World Euchre Championships.

[cards shuffling]

Shelly Johnson:We really have pulled in people from all areas of the country who just love the game of euchre. It’s easy to learn. Anyone can play, and honestly, we welcome people of all ages and abilities.

Euchre is a very interesting game because there’s definitely a skill component to it, but there’s also a luck component to it.

Angela Fitzgerald:The balance of luck and skill keeps the game exciting, but it’s the memories that make it last.

Growing up, whenever we would go out to dinner, my dad would have a deck of cards, and whenever we would travel together, we would play euchre together.

Carson Crochet:I literally learned how to play sitting on my dad’s lap.

Community Member:We’ve had a euchre league in this community for ever since I can remember, and they’ll travel from different communities. Every community had one or two teams and they’d travel around competing.

Angela Fitzgerald:For newcomers, it’s a way in.

Participant 1:Midwest game, so we’d heard of it. Jess had just moved to Chicago and we don’t do sports. We’re like, “What league can we join? How can we socialize with people?” So then they taught me euchre so we could join the league, and we really made her dad proud.

Participant 2:Yeah, that is so true.

Angela Fitzgerald:Before long, the game wasn’t just about the cards. It was about the people, the stories, and yes, even the costumes.

Jess Villiger:I’ve already had three costume changes. People that have been here before are kind of, “What are you gonna wear this year?”

So something in euchre, it’s called fishing for trump. And so, that’s when you play a low card. It’s normally a 9.

Carson Crochet:Of whatever trump is.Jess Villiger:Or a 10.

And then that pulls out the, like, higher hearts.

Carson Crochet:The bowers.Jess Villiger:The bowers, these guys. So kind of like we’re fishing for these bowers. Yeah, we have the fishing piece. We have little, Carson got…

Carson Crochet:The crawdad.Jess Villiger:Where’s the crawdad? Somewhere on my hat.Carson Crochet:Crawdads.Jess Villiger:Or crawfish.

Carson Crochet:Little worms. So, yeah, we’re fishing for trump.

Angela Fitzgerald:The tournament also raises money for the village they love.

Shelly Johnson:It had been used as green space and as the only sledding hill, really, in our community for generations. The land went up for sale. We didn’t want it to be developed. We raised the other $75,000 to pay them back for their added contribution. So now we’re able to gift that over to the village of New Glarus.

Dan Ziegler:One of my slogans is “Putting fun back in fundraising.” We need the money, but you gotta have fun doing it.

Shelly Johnson:We’re really all here to just have a good time and to raise money to support good local organization and the projects that they’re trying to do.

Angela Fitzgerald:Behind the laughter and friendly games, it’s all about giving back and passing that joy to the next generation.

Shelly Johnson:It’s exciting to see, you know, future generations picking up the game.

Participant 3:And where we live, it is a lot of young people, but today, everyone we’ve played, they’ve been making comments about how they’re usually the youngest team and, you know, they’re 35 years older than us.

Angela Fitzgerald:The winning hand isn’t the cards. It’s the people across the table.

Shelly Johnson:You get to rotate and you never play with the same group of people twice. So it’s just, it’s fun, right? It’s fun to get to know other people, to learn their stories, how they came to play euchre.

Participant 4:It’s almost like a little family.

Participant 5:It’s the game of life. You just play it the best you can, play the cards you’re dealt and do the best you can, and have a great day every day.

[all cheering]

Attendee:Is that good?