Kathy Whidden Wins Jane Johnson Award
[ reprinted in part from NABC Daily Bulletin ]

Kathy & ACBL CEO Silbert		 When Jane Johnson, the beloved manager of the ACBL’s Club and Membership Department for many years, died last year, the ACBL honored her by establishing the Jane Johnson Award, to be given annually to the ACBL employee who provided the best customer service. It was decided that the award would be dual – one for a staff member at Headquarters and one for a tournament director. The first winner of the director award is Kathy Whidden of Winder GA. Whidden, a member of the directing staff at this tournament, has the unique gift of being able to leave everyone happy, even when she has to give them an unfavorable ruling.

“Everyone in my family has one outstanding talent,” said Whidden, “but it looked as if I had been left out. But my parents took me aside and told me my special talent was people.”
Truer words were never spoken. Whidden is that special kind of person who loves people and who makes people feel good. “I love the players – they’re so interesting with all their sizes and shapes and ideas and personalities.”
 
Whidden became interested in playing cards at the age of 3 (Concentration was her first card game), but she didn’t take up bridge until she was 6.  Her parents loved to play bridge, and they started calling on her as soon as she was big enough to hold 13 cards. 
 When she got older, she tried social bridge, but she didn’t like it – too much talk and too little bridge. The ladies weren’t too happy with her – they told her to go try duplicate.

Well, she did exactly that – and she loved it. “Everyone had the same cards, so it was a game of skill rather than luck,” she said. “And I really liked the people. Today all my friends are people I met through bridge – even my husband Chuck.

“I had to chase him. I had him talk to my novices one night, but he didn’t get the hint – he didn’t ask me out. I found out that he might be being transferred to Texas, so I got in touch with my parents to set up everything for him there. That elicited no response.

“Then there was a sectional in Macon, and I was walking back to the hotel after the game. It was 2 a.m., and suddenly there was Chuck. He came right up to me on the sidewalk and gave me a big kiss. ‘That was very nice,’ I told him. ‘Would you like to go to the theater with me?’

“This time everything worked. I moved in with him after two dates – and one of them I spent matching up his 60 pairs of socks. He didn’t like washing socks, so he did it only once every couple of months.” So both Chuck and Kathy are involved in bridge –
he plays and she directs.

But how did Whidden get into directing? Whidden was the Intermediate/Novice chairman at an Atlanta NABC in the Eighties, and Edith McMullin, who today is in charge of EasyBridge!, was impressed by her. She told Whidden she should look into getting to be a tournament director. Whidden took her advice, and clearly it was good advice. Whidden has brought her people talents to directing, and the bridge world is the better for it. 


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