Rub-a-dub-dub, time to enter a tub
Better grab a bath mitt, get set, and go submit an application, because one of the silliest races around is back on this summer after taking a COVID-19 induced hiatus in 2020.
The 16th edition of Stueart Pennington’s World Championship Running of the Tubs will begin at 9 a.m. June 5, and the event’s coordinator, Bill Solleder, suggests getting an ap
plication in early because there will only be eight tubs in each of the three divisions.
Applications are available by emailing bsolleder@ hotsprings.org.
Visit Hot Springs has its tub ready to go, leaving room for only 23 more entrants.
The VHS “Hogwarts Express” is a Harry Potter-themed tub disguised as a locomotive, featuring heavy-duty tires on the front, flat tires on the back and a full steering assembly. It will be pushed by a team dressed in Harry Potter garb. The tub is metal, putting it in the traditional division.
“This is a beautiful tub, but this is about design,” Solleder, marketing director for VHS, said Friday while showing the tub to The Sentinel-Record.
“This is not a good tub as far as racing goes. It’s not aerodynamic, the wheels are a little bit weird, the steering’s tough. This is a locomotive, this is in it just to win it for what it looks like,” he said.
“A good tub is probably a lower profile, light; has a lot to do with where you’re pushing. So this bar back here (at the rear of the Hogwarts Express) probably would be better served if it came out to here (on the sides) so the runner could push and not have to be behind the tub, and could help steering, too. I would suggest larger bars on either side would be great. Keep it light, think about your wheels: Are they slick? Are they gripped? The more tread you have, the more friction you have, the slower you go.”
According to a news release, despite the 2020 Running of the Tubs being canceled, the 2019 winners will return this year, making for some interesting competition.
The Hot Springs Police Department
will go against the Hot Springs Fire Department in the 2021 Battle of the Badge; the Bathhouse Soapery will defend its traditional category title, which they wrested from three-year winner Riser Ford; the Austin Weirdos team from Austin, Texas, will battle for the title in the Modified category; and the Trail Advocacy Coalition of the Ouachitas will go against all competition in the stock category.
The three divisions include traditional, modified and stock.
“Stock tubs are two tubs that we provide for teams who don’t have the wherewithal or know how to build one of these things, so we provide them a
tub,” Solleder said, noting that to run in the stock tub category it has to benefit a nonprofit.
“Modified division is a tub built, not with cast iron, but with fiberglass or aluminum,” he said.
“Always usually a much lighter tub, easier to handle. And then the traditional tub — the granddaddy of all tubs — your traditional cast iron claw foot tub.”
The contest will be conducted with one person inside a filled tub, and everyone else pushing it down Central Avenue with one hand remaining on the tub at all times.
“The best thing for me is the casual and friendly competitiveness of it all,” Solleder said. “It really is fun. People want to win, but at the same time they don’t really care because it’s just such a cool and unique event.”
“The serious part to this whole competition,” he said, “is it was dreamt up by a downtown merchant named Stueart Pennington. He was a steward of downtown and he wanted this race to happen, and it never happened, and after his passing the Downtown Association got together and said ‘We really need to do this,’ and at that point it was named Stueart Pennington Running of the Tubs, and then the World Championship was later added.”
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan, a champion of opening public access to legal proceedings, has died, a court spokesman said Friday. He was 87.
Kogan, who died Thursday, was appointed to the high court in 1987 by then-Gov. Bob Martinez, a Republican. He was chief justice of the court from 1996 to 1998, after which he went into private legal practice.
Among other things, Kogan was known for an “Access Initiative,” which was intended to use the internet to make courts more open to the public. One of Kogan’s ideas was to make state Supreme Court oral arguments available over the internet.
“These are practices now standard around the nation but novel when he pioneered them,” court spokesman Craig Waters said.
The Florida Court Public Information Officers organization, which presented Kogan with an award in 2019, said his work “became the foundation of Florida’s cutting edge court communications program as we know it today.”
“It was on full display when high profile cases hit the court, most notably the presidential election cases of 2000 known to history as Bush v. Gore,” the organization said.
That battle was ultimately settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Republican George W. Bush, who became president, over Democrat Al Gore.
In 1997, Kogan ordered broadcasts of all Florida Supreme Court oral arguments over cable and satellite TV and via livestream. Other courts around the country soon followed suit.
After his Supreme Court service, Kogan joined JAMS, a Miami law firm that specializes in resolving legal disputes outside the courtroom.
“Justice Kogan was a well-respected member of the Florida legal community,” firm CEO Chris Poole said Friday in a statement. “He was honored and recognized for his work in legal ethics and was admired by his colleagues and attorneys. We will remember him for his passion for justice, his wisdom and most of all, for his dedication and commitment to his family.”
Kogan moved with his family from New York to Miami Beach in 1947. He attended high school there and then the University of Miami, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business and then his law degree.
After that, Kogan joined the U.S. Army, where he served as a special agent in the counterintelligence corps.
In 1960, Kogan was named a prosecutor in the Dade County state attorney’s office — it didn’t become Miami-Dade until later — and became chief of the homicide and capital crimes division.
In 1980, he was named a circuit judge in Miami and then, a few years later, a justice on the Florida Supreme Court.