What started out as a donation rod build for a wounded veteran has turned into a major focal point and program for TRB. Headed up by Pat Helton, it has already been featured in a local newspaper and on CH13 Live at 4!

 

Brad Thomas

Was wounded in Iraq on January 18th, 2008. we were asked to do a  custom rod for him and his family to commorative Brad and his fallen Comrades. There was 4 club members that participated in the build...Jerry Poindexter, Doug Moore, Jim Lueck, and Putter Parpart.

The rod was presented to Rocky Thomas (Brad's father) on July 11th and at a fundraiser held for Brad. Just recently, CH13 did a Hometown Live spot on this story on August 25th

This is Rocky Thomas, Brad's Aunt Pam, and his brother Corey being interviewed by Kathisia Cosley with CH13 News.

Hometown Live Link

Go to the "Relaxing gift for wounded veteran" clip.

The Texas Rod Builders are meeting with support from everywhere. Many of the vendors that supply custom builders with our components have been making donations to support effort as we continue to build rods for soldiers and develop our program. Fishing Tackle Unlimited  has donated complete rod kits as well as donations from Batson Enterprises, Fish Hawk Threads, Rodology, Pluegger Reels, and others.

Pat has even recieved material from the Dallas Cowboys (autograhed banner w/ Wade Phillips and Jerry Jones), an autographed baseball by Roy Oswalt form the Astros, and material form the Texas Rangers. All of these items will be sold in a silent auction at the November 14th event at FTU.

Any public donations to our program will be glady accepted. For us to be able to support the program at the level we want to maintain it, we will need more funds than our vendors are able to donate. So we are asking for any donations by anyone that wants to help us in our program. We also have TRB hats and shirts, calendar and mugs for purchase which all the proceeds go the the Rods for Soldiers program.