Sunday,
August 05, 2007
By Doug
Oster, Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
Debra Dion
Krischke lets out a long sigh when asked why she canceled the
Three Rivers Paintball Tournament that she's produced for the
past 16 years with her husband, Ryan.
"Things
changed," she said. "The industry changed. You've got
to know when an event has had its life span."
It was five
years ago when the paintball community created two separate leagues,
"akin to the AFL and NFL," said Mrs. Krischke, of McCandless.
And that was the start of something that affected the viability
of the tournament.
Mrs. Krischke
believes the different leagues polarized the industry. An industry
conference was part of the Three Rivers Paintball Tournament,
which was also known as the International Amateur Open.
It attracted
thousands of participants, industry insiders and spectators from
all over North America. For most of its existence, it was held
in New Sewickley. It moved to the Big Butler Fairgrounds for several
years and returned to its original location last year.
It's been
estimated that the event brought as much a $20 million into the
local economy during its run.
Mrs. Krischke
laughed as she recalled that paintball movers and shakers equated
the tournament to the country of Switzerland.
"We were
the one place where the entire industry could come together and
not literally bring out the guns and shoot each other," she
said.
"That's
my nature," she continued, "to be inclusive and bring
everyone together for the betterment of the sport and the industry
and it worked. It was a good, long run."
Mrs. Krischke
was one of the first women to play paintball back in 1982.
"I loved
this game from the moment I first shot somebody. It was tag, hide-and-seek
all rolled into one, played in the woods and those games are timeless,"
she said.
She started
doing public relations work for The National Survival Game while
she ran a restaurant in New Hampshire and she met her husband
at a paintball conference. She sold the restaurant, moved to this
area and began running Three Rivers Paintball with her husband
on 70 acres in New Sewickley. It's one of the oldest and most
established fields in the country.
Although it's
sad for Mrs. Krischke to give up something she spent almost two
decades doing, she won't miss the countless hours spent organizing
the tournament. "It was grueling physically and mentally.
It's more than a relief. It's like a 2,000-pound weight off my
shoulders."
She's also
is finding comfort that she has something else in her life to
focus on.
"I moved
into producing fund-raisers for women's initiatives, specifically
domestic violence, education for single moms. I took my skill
set and just moved it into something that has more meaning for
me at this point in my life. So that certainly helped."
She joined
Zonta, an international women's service organization and created
the Glass Slipper Ball, featuring the Best of the Chefs. Since
its Pittsburgh debut four years ago, it has sold out each year
and generated more than $210,000 for scholarships. Mrs. Krischke
is helping to start the program in other cities, including Houston,
Texas. She was honored as one of Pennsylvania's Best 50 Business
Women for 2006.
"I think
if I didn't have some other higher purpose, something else consuming
me, it would be a more difficult transition," she said.
"Things
change. That's the only constant, right?"
Although her
voice has a touch of sadness as she talks about the demise of
something she worked on for 16 years, she said she feels a sense
of accomplishment.
"You
don't set off to start something that's big like that. You just
set off to start something that's going to be great and needed,
that's going to be well received. When you start from that place,
things can happen. People embrace it, they need it and they want
it. They support you and they help you to have it grow."
Doug Oster
can be reached at doster@post-gazette.com
or 724-772-9177.
