when they vacationed at Copco
Lake in Northern California in
1982 and took that first picture.
Wardlaw, now a filmmaker
in Santa Barbara, liked the
photo so much he had an en-
largement made and hung it
on his wall. The five tried to
meet every year, but for one
reason or another, someone
wouldn’t make it. Five years
later, in 1987, Wardlaw recalls,
“All five were going to be
there so we thought it was like
a marker.”
Twenty years later, in 1997,
when they took the fourth
photo, “that’s when we de-
cided to start taking it even
more seriously,” recalls Ward-
law. “We’ve done everything
we can to get everyone there
[every five years] and duplicate
that photo.”
Their story (
www.copcolake
.com/five) has resonated all over
the world.—Steve Fisher
MEMBERconnection
1992
1982
2002
2012
Five guys reunion
“PEOPLE KNOW the importance of having good friends,” says Costco
member John Wardlaw. “And when you do age, you do drift away from
them. So I think it’s something that everyone who’s had close friends at
some point in their life can relate to.”
Wardlaw, Mark Rumer, Dallas Burney, John Molony and John
Dickson (as pictured, left to right) were 18 and recent high school grads
e vg
POP-CULTURE geeks may
rule now, but academic
geeks are rising up. The
documentary Brooklyn
Castle (
www.brooklyncastle.com)
takes viewers inside I.S. 318, an
underfunded New York City junior
high school that for years has
cranked out national chess champi-
ons, some ranked higher than
Einstein. Director and Costco mem-
ber Katie Dellamaggiore overturns
the notion of a stuffy, aristocratic
sport through her depiction of this
multiracial team.
“Chess is a really inclusive
sport that kids and people of all
ages and backgrounds play,” she
tells The Connection. “You would
have no idea unless you went to a
tournament or worked in the chess
world.” She was already fascinated
by the school’s amazing chess
team, but when budget cuts threat-
ened the program, the real drama
unfolded as the principal, teachers
and students fought for its survival.
“It was interesting that the best
team in the nation didn’t have the
money to go to national competi-
tions,” says Dellamaggiore, whose
Geek chıc
COSTCO MEMBER Ron Bailey, an engineer and former general contractor, started Minnesota-based Cut & Fill Inc. in 1986 as the nation’s first “dirtfill” telephone ser- vice, connecting those with excess fill dirt to those who need it. In 1999, he trademarked the word “dirtfill” and created a website (
www.dirtfill.com) to complement the telephone service. “It’s a match-up service,” Bailey explains. Contractors with excess dirt pay Cut & Fill Inc. a finder’s fee to get matched up with someone who needs the dirt through the telephone service or at DirtFill.com. The finder’s fee is mall compared to the thousands of dollars it could cost contractors in travel, materials and search time. Meanwhile, those receiving the fill, which includes homeowners, business owners and contractors, get it free. The website’s search function automatically sorts by ZIP codes and distance to get the closest match-up. “We give them a date with dirt,” says Bailey. Drey Bauer of Hastings, Minnesota, one of 10,000-plus users of DirtFill.com, received 13 loads of free dirt for his BMX motocross track in 2003 when he was just 14 years old. In 2009 that free dirt turned into pay dirt when he won first place in the Quad MX Race at the Spring Creek Motocross Track in Millville, Minnesota. — James L. Stroud Jr. Making a date with dirt
CHRIS A RUSNAK
film allows audiences to fall in love
with the characters before events
become tumultuous.
She hopes her film will
empower geeks of all sorts. “With
geeks being cool in other ways,
perhaps a shift can happen where
it can be cool to be smart or to be
really good at something that would
otherwise be seen as something
really geeky. Like chess, the ulti-
mate geek sport; right? We
hope the kids will see it and
then have more confidence
to do the thing that they
were good at that maybe
they were shy about
before.”
—Bryan Reesman
100 ;e Costco Connection OCTOBER 2012 WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! If you have a note, photo or story to share about Costco or Costco members, email it to connection@ costco.com with “The Member Connection” in the subject line or send it to The Member Connection, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088. Submissions cannot be acknowledged or returned.
