Teams Ready to Compete at 3rd Annual Dragon Boat Festival April 21

Time for the annual Texarkana Dragon Boat Festival this Saturday, April, 21, at Bringle Lake Park to benefit HandsOn Texarkana.  I had the opportunity to be a part of this event the past two years and I must say it was more fun than I originally thought even though we didn't win. It was about team building and teamwork.

The sport of Dragon Boating began centuries ago in ancient China and through the years has developed into a competitive worldwide sport where businesses, organizations, and individuals assemble a team or group of at least 20 participants for dragon boat races. The races work like this, team members are given a paddle seated in 10 rows of 2 with a drummer facing the paddlers. The team then paddles in sync to the drummers beat used as motivation to race to the finish line. There is also a steer person that stands in the stern of the boat, guiding the boat straight down the race course with a 9-foot oar.

Dragon Boat Teams this year are:

• Barbell Bombshells
• Barbell Butterflies
• Boggy Creek Monsters
• Bootleggers
• Brains and Brawn
• Cajun Invasion
• Discoverers
• Domtar Dominators
• Firebreathing Misfits
• FwdFit's Getting Knotty
• GPI Landlubbers
• HCE Dirty Oars
• Row Above Average
• Stop Dragon My Heart Around
• Team JCM
• Texarkana Marines
• Texas A&M Texarkana
• Wadley Water Warriors

The third annual Texarkana Dragon Boat Races presented by Wadley Regional Medical Center starts at 9AM. Food vendors will be available for the general public.