Eagles’ Felder donates instruments to charity auction
Local businessman sells guitars in support of Olympic athletes
Sine Chadi is back from a week’s island hopping in the British Virgin Islands and enjoying Alberta’s cooler air on his head.
The follically challenged Chadi dove regularly from a 15-metre-long catamaran into azure waters and forgot to reapply sunscreen to his scalp. “I ended up with a pretty burned head,” said the president and CEO of Edmonton real estate company Imperial Equities Inc. “It’s wonderful to feel cool Alberta air gliding over your crown,” said Chadi. “Those with hair insulation are lucky.”
Chadi and his wife, Seham, and two other couples — homebuilder Greg Christenson and Jill Didow, and John and Wanda Croft — paid $14,000 each to make the trip, winning the bidding at last October’s Gold Medal Plate Dinner at the Shaw Conference Centre.
“The funds went to support our Canadian Olympic athletes,” said Chadi. “Former Eagles lead guitarist Don Felder and his Canadian buddy (former NHL player) Russ Courtnall hosted those on our five-yacht flotilla.”
The trip highlight? “Don played for us on the last night and opened with Hotel California, for which he wrote the music,” says Chadi. “He played his heart out.”
Felder, now 66, donated an acoustic and an electric guitar for an auction. “I often help charities as an auctioneer and sold the guitars for a total of $35,000, the money again going to help Canadian athletes,” said Chadi.
SPINNING INTERNATIONALLY
The first thing Sine Chadi did on arriving home was jump on his bike and begin pedalling back from Haida Gwaii. “Then I did part of a leg on the Tour de France,” he said
How of earth did he pedal in two places at once?
“When I say I have been riding back from Haida Gwaii and in the French Alps, I mean virtually,” he said.
“I have GPS maps on my stationary bike that shows every metre along the Yellowhead Highway from the coast and all the Tour de France stages. When hills appear, I have to change gears and work that much harder.”
Chadi is riding on our bike tour June 16 to July 1 when we will escort a three-metre totem pole from Haida Gwaii back to Edmonton for the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation. Like nearly all our riders, he has been spin-training on his bike.
“I underwent quadruple bypass surgery four years ago and promised myself I would never return to the bad shape I was in,” said Chadi, who is sponsoring our final bike stage into Edmonton.
“So far, everything is just peachy.”
NEVER IN HOT WATER
If Fred Schulte’s daughter Jill hadn’t used all the hot shower water, it’s questionable if he would be running in the 2014 Boston Marathon.
Schulte will be 70 when he competes in the world’s oldest annual marathon on Patriot’s Day, Monday, April 21.
“I wanted to be fitter when I worked for the provincial government in the early 1990s,” he says.
“I found skating and swimming boring, and took up running from home. But there was no hot water for a shower in the mornings after Jill had her shower.”
So Schulte began running from the Kinsman Fieldhouse and was motivated to improve after mixing with other runners. In 2003, he joined a Running Room 10-kilometre clinic.
“I was the only man and after being talked into running in a 10-km race, then a half-marathon, at 61 years of age in 2005, I ran my first marathon,” says Schulte.
“I didn’t think much about it during training, but during the last mile of the 42-km marathon, I became quite emotional.
“I was in tears when Running Room president and founder John Stanton welcomed me at the finish line. I felt I had accomplished something.”
The 2014 Boston Marathon is special, says Schulte, because many of the 5,500 runners prevented from finishing last year, after two bombs killed three people and injured an estimated 264 people, are returning this year.
“Those that didn’t finish were given first dibs on qualifying slots,” says Schulte. “I will be 70 on April 13 and last year ran a 4:08 marathon to make the 4:10 qualifying time for my age group. This is my 12th marathon.”
Schulte has no problems with a hot shower at home now. “Jill and her sister Margo are both married with families and we have lots of hot water,” he says. “They are both athletically inclined and a little miffed when I started beating them in races.” RETIREMENT NEWS PREMATURE
Stories that Brian Francis, 87, will not play in the Western Senior Indoor National Tennis Champion at the Royal Glenora Club and Saville Sports Centre that runs April 2 to 6 are unfounded.
“I will play singles and have entered the doubles with Ed McCoy,” says Francis, who has had a hip replacement, three knee replacements, shoulder surgery and so many broken bones from rugby that he doesn’t remember them all.
“Ed and I both turn 88 on September 12 and are in great shape. We will compete in the 85-and-over category. I don’t know where these stories of my retirement come from. Anxious rivals, I suspect.”