Hello judges!
Time for another month of judge anniversaries. I apologize for the delay – I had some travel problems. The following judges have been with the program for 10 or 5 years:
10 years
Shing Nien Fong, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
Kun Kong, Beijing, China
Ioan Llwyd, Swansea- West Glamorgan, Wales, Great Britain
Berkin Bozdogan, Istanbul, Turkey
Tony Mayer, Bothell, Washington, United States
Heath Hoffman, Omaha, Nebraska, United States
Marcus Bailey, Alexandria, Louisiana, United States
Serg Rygin, Saratov, Russian Federation
Alex Bakopoulos, Thessaloniki, Greece
5 years
Yoel Gennedy, Jakarta, Indonesia
Ryuji Yano, Fukuyama-shi, Hiroshima-ken, Japan
Congratulations and thank you for all your hard work!
Finally, two judges are celebrating their 5th anniversary as Level 3 judges this month.
Arnaud Bordoux of Belgium was promoted to Level 3 at Pro Tour Charleston in 2006. Level 4 judges Kevin Desprez and Jurgen Baert had this to say about Arnaud: “In the first years of the last decade, Belgium was close to a wasteland judging-wise: It was frequent that judges had to be invited from the neighbouring countries to HJ PTQs. In 2004, Arnaud became certified and he quickly leveled up in the program to achieve L3: That was back in 2006 and Pro Tour Charleston, 5 years ago. At the time, only L3s could certify L1s. So Arnaud started driving throughout Belgium for certification to happen again. The community quickly knew a new development and is now very rich, with 1 L4, 1 L3 and 5 L2s. When he’s not judging or playing Magic, Arnaud enjoys board games and live action roleplaying.”
Hector Fuentes of Mexico was also promoted at Pro Tour Charleston 2006. Level 4 judge Carlos Ho writes: “When I started to dream about going to Grand Prix and Pro Tour events, there was usually this staff picture posted on the DCI website for each event, with the names of each judge on it. Being Latin American, I couldn’t help notice that there was this Mexican guy going to many Pro Tours, and I thought I’d love to be on his shoes. It wasn’t long before I actually met him at Grand Prix Mexico City 2005, and shortly after that he became one of my best friends in the judge program. Why exactly? It’s not only because we’re from the same region and we speak the same language; Héctor brings something to each event that I highly value: fun. He’s funny, energetic, and goes out of his way to make people smile and enjoy their time at events. And having fun at events is what makes us come back over and over.
Luckily, Héctor loves traveling, so he’s been around the world, lending a smile to people from different regions. He’s a true road warrior: he once spent several days traveling all the way from Mexico to Guatemala by bus (several of them, actually) in order to help at Guatemala’s and El Salvador’s Nationals and test new candidates (we got two new L1s and a new L2 out of that trip!). He also went to GP Houston 2010 by bus, from Mexico. Overall, he’s been an integral part of the Mexican and Central American community, having tested several of the L1s and L2s in the area, if not most of them.
If you see Hector in the staff list for an upcoming event you’ll be attending, rest assured, that event is going to be fun. Órale, wey!”