More than 80 swimmers, parents, and coaches attended the clinic on October 9^th at Highland Park. Katie McClelland and Lia Oberstar talked about many of the wonderful experiences that swimming has given them during their amazing careers. They talked about the importance of having the right attitude, enjoying the great sport of swimming, staying focused on your goals, and making sure that you have a healthy diet.

Katie and Lia will both be competing in the United States Olympic Trials next August and we wish both of them the best of luck. They will also be competing in World Cup events all over the world over the next few months. We are especially proud of Katie because she has been a Dallas Mustangs since 1993 and continues to be an incredible role model for our younger Mustangs. She has offered to show up at workouts and clinics from time to time to share more of her knowledge and experiences.

Thank you very much for a great clinic, ladies!

The Dallas Mustangs will be sponsoring another free clinic for our swimmers (and any parents who would like to attend). The clinic will be held at the SMU indoor pool on Saturday, November 27 from 11 am to 1 pm. The clinic will feature SMU Men’s coach Eddie Sinnott and the SMU men’s swimming team. Eddie is considered one of the best coaches in the country so this is a clinic that everyone needs to attend.

The first "A" meet of the season is the Pentathlon. This is a fun meet to start the season off with because of the meet’s unusual format. Each swimmer must swim all five events (each of the four strokes and an individual medley), then the times of those events are added together to find the winners in each age group. Those Mustangs who finished in the top six in their age group and were given a nice, new towel as an award were: Caroline Jennings (1^st – 11-12 girls), Jennifer Blackman (6^th 13-14 girls), Courtney Patterson (3^rd – 15-18 girls), Sarah Wells (5^th – 15-18 girls). Other Mustangs finishing in the top 20 for their age group were: Alexandra Jennings, Lauren Roth, Hayley Hatfield, Devon Bowsher, Meredith Grubb, Candice Blackman, Adriane Devereux, Sara Haney, Debbie Forinash, Michael Carpenter, Brooks Haller, Jeff Girard, Brian Stephens, Warren Renick, and Kenneth Wherry.

Almost 800 swimmers showed up to compete and have fun at the 13^th annual running of the Haunted Hat meet held at Loos Pool on October 16-17, 1999. Mustang’s first-time meet director Jeff Veazey did a great job of recruiting volunteers and organizing this year’s event. Our team finished second overall in the team standings and had many outstanding swims in our first BB/B/C meet of the fall/winter season. Almost every Mustang swimmer recorded at least one personal best time.

The following people finished in the top 10 of their age group in one or more events. Those underlined finished first at least one time. Way to go Mustangs!

Girls 10 & Under:

Devon Bowsher, Claire Butterworth, Meredith French, Becky Jester, Leah Kitchen, Maggie Marshall, Kate McNamara, Meredith Monroe, Rachel Pearson

Jenny Davis, Arielle Goldberg, Kate Gunning, Nicole Keller, Kate McNeill, Brittany Miller, Jennifer Penley, Erica Saito, Jessica Shaw, Christa White, Beverly Yee

The Mustangs took a limited squad to the season’s final meet opportunity for the majority of our team; however, our swimmers that went did a great job and made their presence known. Just like the Plano Pentathlon, swimmers must compete in all events offered in their age group in order to win awards. Those swimmers and their overall standings were:

8 & under girls – Spin Beck (1^st), Alexandra Weber (3^rd), Avery Rape (13^th)

9 year old girls – Lauren Roth (2^nd), Ashley Rape (7^th), Meredith Higgins (8^th), Kristen Masters (9^th)

10 year old girls – Hayley Hatfield (6^th), Rori Barnes (17^th)

14 year old girls – Kate McNeill (5^th)

8 & under boys – Caleb Veazey (1^st), Christopher Hewitt (6^th)

10 year old boys – Nicolas Low (3^rd), John Bannon (5^th), Derrick Brown (7^th)

The 6^th Annual SMU Women’s Swimming Classic is coming up on November 5 & 6, 1999. The meet will be held at SMU’s Perkins Natatorium and will begin at 7:30 p.m. Top teams from around the country will be competing, including Texas, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and UCLA. Rarely do we get the chance to see this many world class athletes in one venue, so all Mustang swimmers are encouraged to attend. Tickets can be purchased at the door at the following rates: students $5, adults $10.

Due to Highland Park High School swim meets, all HP practices will be moved to Loos on the following nights: Tuesday, Nov. 2, and Friday, Nov. 12. For those swimmers would like to go to Loos for practices, those times are Bronze 5:30-6:30p.m. or 6:30-7:30 p.m., Silver 6-7:30, and Gold 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Just a reminder that the Dallas Mustangs is registered with Tom Thumb in its Good Neighbor Program. Attach our Good Neighbor Number (cut it out and bring it to the store) to your Reward Card and Tom Thumb will donate a percentage of the member’s total grocery purchases back to the Dallas Mustangs every time your Reward Card is used! Painless and potentially profitable for our team!

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As was discussed in last month’s newsletter, there is an adult social on November 13^th at 7 p.m. for all of the parents and coaches on the team. The location of the event has been changed: the hosts are now going to be Sharon and Don Haney, who are the parents of swimmer Sara Haney. The Haney’s live at 5801 Windmier Lane, Dallas, (972-818-8484) which is just north of Frankford and east of the Tollway.

(Take Frankford off of the Tollway, head east on Frankford, turn north on Campbell, and take an immediate left onto Windmier Lane). Again, please bring a dish to share with others and drinks will be provided. Parents should RSVP to Wendy Begg at 972-307-3128 by November 10, 1999. Hope to see you there!

Although it is not quite Thanksgiving and Christmas seems very distant in our minds, it is not too soon to start thinking about short course TAGS which is scheduled for early March! This year North Texas Swimming will be hosting TAGS, which will run from March 2 – 5, 2000 at Loos Natatorium. Because our LSC is hosting this meet, we will be assigned specific duties for which our team will need to provide volunteers. Please make note of these dates and block off some time so that you can volunteer.

Congratulations to Oscar Masters, who swims in the National Group at Loos. Oscar is an 11^th grader at McArthur High School in Irving. He placed first overall in academic standing for the first six weeks of school.

Editor’s Apology: About six weeks ago, a parent from the swim team called my home and left a message on my answering machine regarding her child’s academic achievement. Unfortunately, the message was inadvertently erased and I do not have any record of who it was that called. My sincere apologies to that parent, who ever you are and to your swimmer. If you read this, could you please call once again and I will submit it in the next newsletter. Thank you.

Wendy Begg

The 1999-2000 Dallas Mustangs swim directory should be ready for distribution within the next few weeks. Each family will receive one directory and it will be placed in the swimmer’s folder at his/her home pool. For those families who have more than one swimmer, the directory will be placed in the older child’s folder.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THE FOLLOWING DATES. THESE ARE MEETS THAT THE DALLAS MUSTANGS WILL BE HOSTING IN THE UPCOMING SEASONS. REMEMBER, THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO VOLUNTEER AND EARN MUSTANG BUCKS!

The Dallas Mustangs would like to welcome the following new swimmers to our team!

Kendel Ahnnell, Adreanna Alleman, Elisa Alleman, Ryan Anderes, Beth Bacon, Courtenay Barclay, Katherine Barclay, Bri Barfield, Marybeth Bauer, Laura Beck, Mary Beck, Patrick Begnoche, Candace Blackman, Jennifer Blackman, Nina Bolka, Steve Brock, Michael Brooks, Caroline Butterworth, Catherine Butterworth, Jeremy Chiang, David Chiu, Chris Clontz, Haley Coe, Abby Court, Ashley Cox, Colleen Davis, Jennifer Davis, Sameer Deshpande, Jordan Essenburg, Shelley Foran, Eliza Glasstetter, Amy Graves, Em Gunning, Kate Gunning, Eric Gusa, Kim Hallum, Nick Handy, Taylor Hartman, Wakana Hayashi, Jun Hirota, Kaho Hirota, Amanda Hopkins, William Howison, Ko Inagaki, Kent Irvin, Jarrett Karrington, Michael Keljo, Emily Keliher, Jacque Kennedy, Bo Killen, Ashley Kitchen, Katherine Kofahl, Diana Larsen, Liz Lass, Jamie Lassiter, Brooke Louisell, Jason Luter, Ryan Machir, Lauren Marley, John Mason, Drew Maute, Daniel Maute, Roy Maute, Marcie Maute, Will McNamara, Neelum Meghani, Tory Mellinger, Jason Mitura, Molly Mocek, Katherine Mondo, Sadie Morgan, Charlie Morris, Alicia Nicoud, Catherine Noyes, Annabel Obek, Mizuki Okada, Moe Okada, Katie Palser, Alex Pappas, Cort Payne, Melanie Pinc, Daniel Plumlee, Joshua Pringle, John Prokup, David Puelz, Charlie Puelz, Victor Ramon, Katy Rogers, Samir Saidi, Melanie Samuels, Jordan Schraeder, Amy Shyr, Tom Shyr, Katie Skidmore, Brady Sylvan, Rachel Sylvan, Sean Stogner, Michelle Rudzinski, Hannah Wales, Tres Wales, Christa White, John White, Hao Xu and Adam Yount.

As a quick reference, here are important dates for upcoming events:

Oct 30-31 – Little Splashers (Loos)

Nov 2 – no HP w/o, all w/o at Loos

Nov 6-7 – All Star Q meet (Loos)

Nov 6-7 – 11 & over BB/B/C meet (Northlake)

Nov 12 – no HP w/o, all w/o @ Loos

Nov 13 – Adult Social at Haney’s

Nov 19 – no Loos w/o, all w/o @ HP (N&G 4:30-6:30, S 6-7:30, B 6-7)

Nov 21 – North/South All Star Meet – Midland