When Tony Giasson purchased a raffle ticket earlier this year for a green 1970 Jeep that was being raffled off in the Columbia Valley Rockies Classic Car Raffle, he thought he was a winner already.
“I bought tickets early on when it was just out front of the (Home Hardware) store and I bought three tickets and I said to my wife, ‘You know what, I think I just bought myself this thing’,” he said.
When the annual fundraiser concluded after many more months of ticket-selling, Giasson learned that his initial thought was a reality, receiving the call that he was to become the new owner of the vehicle while in Seattle watching a Toronto Blue Jays game. His first thought, “What am I going to do with the thing?”
“Then I got thinking, well, I have a place in Fairmont and we go out in the backcountry to lakes and things like that, it’d be the perfect vehicle for doing that kind of stuff,” he said. “I’m actually quite happy that I was the lucky winner.”
Giasson, the president and chief operating officer for a company called MaXfield located in Crossfield, Alberta, said he plans to use the vehicle in the summer months when he spends weekends in the valley exploring the backcountry of the Columbia Valley.
“We go down into the backcountry a lot and I have a trailer that I pull these quads with and I have a truck that I bought just for that so now I’m going to get rid of the truck and I’m going to use this jeep for doing that kind of stuff,” he said. “I just like being out in the backcountry so this thing kind of fits our lifestyle in the sense that we bought (property) in British Columbia because at some point in my life we’re going to probably retire there for the summer and maybe then take up fishing.”
The Classic Car Raffle is one of the many annual fundraisers that the Rockies have been holding for years and it has been successful, said Rockies volunteer Amanda Nason.
“It takes a lot of people each year to make it successful,” Nason said. “This year was no exception, but it’s rewarding as a volunteer to see the face of the happy winner.”
Nason congratulates Tony and Merle Giasson on their new vehicle and sends out a thank you to everyone who supported the Rockies Classic Car Raffle throughout the year.