WBKR’s Keys to Adventure Camper Giveaway Ends in the Most 2020 Way [Photos]
The grand prize giveaway for our Keys to Adventure contest wrapped up this morning at Diamond Lake Campground and Resort. All of our qualifiers gathered for our first ever "drive-in" grand prize finale.
2020 has been an absolutely crazy year and, well, it got even crazier this morning when Bobby Oliver, the FIRST person we called up to try his key, opened the camper door and won it!
Bobby's story is an incredibly moving one. But, first, I need to explain just how insanely crazy (and random) his win is.
We had a maximum of 92 qualifiers for this event, which meant we had 92 keys available for our qualifiers to choose from. Obviously, only one of the keys actually worked. As with all of our contests, we wanted to make sure that key selection was completely randomized. So, we placed each of the 92 keys in a small, brown paper bag, mixed them all up so even we didn't know where the winning key was located and then placed each one in its own envelope. Those envelopes were numbered 1-92. Now, wait! It gets even more random than that.
The envelopes were then placed inside our WBKR prize packs and each qualifierd was allowed to choose one. Also, because of the way we randomized the keys in the brown paper bags and the envelopes, we had NO idea which bag housed the winning key. And, yes. It gets even more random.
When our qualifiers signed in this morning (one at a time, by the way), they were asked to choose a number between 1 and 92. They could only choose from the numbers remaining (we had a big game board and Barb crossed off bag numbers as they were chosen). When Bobby Oliver arrived at the grand prize event, he had decided to choose from one of three numbers: 11, 24, or 90. When he finally pulled up to the board, 11 and 24 had already been chosen by qualifiers who checked in before he did. So, he took bag number 90.
To start the contest, we took the names of all of our qualifiers, folded and mixed them up, and placed them in a jar. Bobby's name just happened to be the first name Dave Spencer drew. And, well, in the most 2020 of ways, that name happened to be Bobby Oliver's. Bobby just happened to have chosen bag #90, which just happened to have been home to the winning key!
EVERYONE was stunned! Completely shocked. I have worked at WBKR for 23 years and we have had some epic grand prize giveaway events. No one, in a million years, could have predicted a finale like this. Yes, the very FIRST person to try to open the camper door happened to be the person who had chosen the bag that happened to have housed the winning key. IT. WAS. CRAZY. It was VERY 2020.
After Bobby won we decided to call his girlfriend, Anita. She wasn't feeling well this morning, so she chose to skip the grand prize event and let Bobby come by himself. Needless to say, we surprised her with a phone call she'll never forget.
What a wild and crazy ending to a wild and crazy contest. I have to give a big shout out to Owensboro RV and Diamond Lake Campground and Resort for partnering with us for Keys to Adventure. And, of course, we have to give a shout out to all of qualifiers who pulled into our drive-in giveaway this morning hoping to win.
But, the biggest shout-out of all goes to Bobby Oliver, who's son, Joseph Tyler Oliver, passed at birth thirty years ago on 11-24-90. It was clear through Bobby's emotions that he still carries Joseph with him every single day. On this particular day, Bobby brought Joseph to Diamond Lake.