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Roger PutnamPutnam earns ACBL service award

Image: Roger Putnam being congratulated by D. 19 Board member, Carol Holcombe during the Penticton Regional, June 2008.

Roger Putnam, one of ACBL’s most popular tournament directors – with his peers as well as with players – has been named as the 2008 recipient of the Jane Johnson Award for outstanding service.

The award is named in honor of the late head of ACBL’s Member Services Department. Earlier this year, Patty Taylor in Member Services and Dana Norton in Education received the Jane Johnson Award given to Headquarters employees.

Putnam has many friends and admirers in the ACBL ranks. “Roger is a very good role model as a floor TD,” said Rick Beye, ACBL’s chief tournament director. “He knows how to talk to the players. When I first started out, I liked the way he worked and I wanted to be like him. When I worked on his team I always learned something.” Putnam, who lives in Redmond WA near Seattle, worked his first tournament in 1967 and has plied his trade at NABCs three times a year since 1969. He achieved national rank as a TD in 1985.

“You have to be very lucky for your avocation to turn into your vocation,” he said, noting that he is going on part-time status as of the first of next month. He and his wife, Margo, a former TD herself, plan to play more bridge and do some traveling. “I have always enjoyed playing and the challenge of the game,” Putnam said. National TD Patty Johnson remembers the help she received from Putnam when she first started as a TD. “He was one of those who wanted to help you make it,” she said. “He was always more interested in others than in himself.”

Matt Smith, of Victoria BC, has worked many tournaments with Putnam because they live in the Northwest. “Roger is always up and helpful to people – and he has always been that way,” Smith said.

Putnam said that his going on part-time status doesn’t mean NABC regulars have seen the last of him. He might still work at the big tournaments, or “I may show up to play.”

Article source: Daily Bulletiln, Summer NABC July 2008