PANORA, Iowa, February 18, 2010 – There will be great deals and unique purchases aplenty this Saturday night, February 20, when fundraising auctions are held as part of the third annual membership banquet of the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association.

The event at the Lake Panorama National Resort & Conference Centerbegins at 6 p.m. with a social time, a full dinner and then the remarks of guest speaker Kevin Cooney, the well-known news anchor for KCCI-TV News in Des Moines.  You can read more about Cooney, and what an avid bicyclist he is, in another story on this Internet site.

The banquet is now nearly a sell-out, meaning there will be 200 people attending.

There will be both silent and live auctions, and among donated items that have caught our attention:

– RRVT Association board member Allan Sieck, of rural Rippey, has custom-made a one-of-a-kind wooden lamp table, which his neighbor Kevin Wilbeck, another of the board members, says is “stunning.”  Wilbeck’s description: “It is a small rustic-style table made from five pieces of wood native to the Raccoon River valley.  The legs are thin but still have bark on the outside corners.  The table top will have a wood-burned map of the trail, including the new North Loop, with an RRVT logo inset in another kind of wood.  Allan’s daughter Juliana has surrounded the map in a ‘Sticks’-style motif with small references to certain towns, like bricks near Adel and other local touches.”

– Mark and Char Vukovich, 0f Des Moines and Lake Panorama, are donating week-long stays at one of their condos, and you can make a choice whether you want to go to the one in Frisco, Colorado, or the other one in Scottsdale, Arizona.

– Cartoonist/artist Brian Duffy, who was guest speaker at last year’s banquet, has done another original drawing featuring the Raccoon River Valley Trail.

– Copper artist  Brian Myers, who is also a plumber in Dallas Center, has made another of his bicycle-topped “copper weather vane” art pieces, one of which was among the most popular items at last year’s auction.

– Overnight stays have been contributed by the Old Lincolnway Hotel in Jefferson, Prairie View B&B west of Panora, the Hotel Pattee in Perry,  the Yellow Swan B&B of Dallas Center, and the Butler House On Grand B&B in Des Moines, and the Butler House’s offer includes dinner for two at the popular Sage restaurant in Des Moines.

– There are golf packages offered by Lake Panorama National Golf Course.

– Bike World, of the Des Moines area, and the Hiawatha Bicycle Co., of Perry, have both donated bicycles.

– Two communities located on the Wabash Trace Nature Trail in southwest Iowa — Malvern and Imogene — have put together complete overnight packages for experiences on that trail including rooms, meals, gifts and more.  And Des Moines Cycle Club Danny Kruzic and his wife Louisa have contributed two passes for the club’s two-day “Ride the Raccoon” bike tour on the second weekend in June.

– There will be a custom-woven neck scarf made by RRVT Association board member Trisha Easton; a bicycle-themed birdhouse made by Panora’s Dave Beidelman; custom picture framing by the Ben Franklin Store in Perry; RRVT apparel from Sew Inspirational in Panora and Sweatshirts by LJS in Dallas Center; a cast iron frying pan (you’ve got to see it) specially made by the Progressive Foundry in Perry; Carhart Coats from John Deere Credit; a cross-country ski set from the Greene County Conservation Board; a 19-inch flat-screen TV and an Acer Notebook computer from Peoples Trust & Savings Bank, Bankers Trust Co. of Des Moines offers a wooden folding picnic table with a 72-inch umbrella, and how about a $400 gift certificate good for in-stock carpet and pad at Perry Paint & Glass?

– Here’s one that will be fun: Bill Claman, of Dallas Center, is donating two-weeks of mobile advertising service on the electronic sign he has mounted on the rear of his vehicle.  He drives it back and forth to work in the Des Moines area every weekday. Got a short fun message you’d like for a whole bunch of people to see?

– There have been generous cash donations, too, and those gifts will help support various fun raffles during the evening. Donors include Scheel’s Sporting Goods, Panora State Bank, Guthrie County State Bank, and the Prairie Woodland Conservation Foundation.

– Meal packages will be available from Gatewqay Market, contributed by Morgan Stanley Smith Barney; ToJo’s of Jamaica; Breadeaux Pizza in Panora, and Just Ethel’s in Yale.  P.J.’s Drive-In in Panora is offering a honey-baked ham that will serve 20, and Mitch Hambleton, of Dallas Center, has donated a home-brewing session.

All of the above is just a partial listing.

New this year — and available for the first time at the banquet — will be specially-designed lapel pins that feature the logo of the Raccoon River Valley Trail.  They’re $7 apiece “and look great,” said Mike Wallace, Dallas County Conservation director who coordinated having the pins made.

Bids will be taken on the silent auction items from 6 p.m. until about 8:30 p.m., and the closing time will be announced several times before it happens. 

The live auction will be conducted by Chad Daugherty, who is the son and partner with his father Kelly Daugherty in Daugherty Auction & Real Estate in Adel.  Kelly Daugherty cried the RRVT auction the last two years and had everybody laughing while he did.