Landers Ford Back for 2012 FedEx St. Jude Classic
A unique marriage of support and sentiment is behind the partnership between Landers Ford, Inc. of Collierville and the FedEx St. Jude Classic.
The dealership not only provides courtesy cars for the tournament’s 156-man field, it also employs an on-staff manager who is living proof that the mission of the tournament’s charity is alive and well.
The connection links a competitive business that is actively involved in the local community with the life-saving story of a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patient – 36-year-old John Rose.
“It’s amazing how many coincidences exist, but it just seems that every aspect of my life in some shape or form has come full circle back to St. Jude,” said Rose, who serves as manager of information technology at Landers Ford.
Last year the dealership, with the help of the Ford Motor Company, eagerly took on the sole responsibility of providing the FESJC with courtesy cars. The project was so successful that Landers president and majority owner Kent Ritchey jumped at the chance to renew the partnership.
“There are just so many great reasons to do this,” Ritchey said. “The tournament is right in our back yard. It benefits St. Jude. And we’re able to partner with the PGA TOUR and with a company like FedEx.
“Quite frankly, it was a ‘no-brainer.’”
Cars will be provided for players and officials during Tournament Week as part of an arrangement that will offer financial incentives to Landers customers who purchase the vehicles during a promotional sales campaign.
In addition to the cars, Landers made a donation of $16,000 to St. Jude last year.
“There are fewer and fewer tournaments arrange for the players to drive courtesy cars,” said FESJC tournament director Phil Cannon. “Even tournaments that are sponsored by car dealers are not able to give courtesy cars to all players. We are very fortunate to have Landers on our team and having their brand tied to the tournament.”
The 55th Memphis event, with a purse of $5.6 million, will be played, June 4-10, at TPC Southwind.
Commitment to the association with the FESJC was not directly connected to the fact that Rose works for the company, but his daily visibility as a staff member certainly serves as a reminder of the designated purpose of St. Jude – saving lives of children – and an endorsement of the cause.
“John is a St. Jude success story of the first magnitude,” Ritchey said. “We see little kids going through their protocols at St. Jude, but when you see somebody years later who is an integral part of your daily work life, you have the proof.
“All the stories at St. Jude are heart-tugging, but the fact that John is a survivor and he’s one of ours . . . that makes it all extra meaningful to us.”
As a youngster, Rose recalls taking part in Math-A-Thons and other fund-raising endeavors for St. Jude, much like hundreds of other kids across the Mid-South and nationally. It was a fun and responsible activity. Life was good – and healthy.
Then at the age of 18, fresh out of CBHS in May of 1994, he began having a physical issue. There was a lumpy swelling in his neck. It was perceived to be mononucleosis. Several months went by before the real seriousness of his condition was determined, and he was rushed to St. Jude.
“I had tumors in 90 percent of my body,” he said, recalling the scare of t-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Because of his age, Rose said he was “only two weeks from the cutoff date for being accepted.” He said he was told later that at the time of his check-in, “My lifespan would have been about three days . . . . I was considered a very high risk.”
Thanks to a special, aggressive protocol of treatment, he quickly and remarkably achieved remission. And just as he did with childhood projects, Rose continues help the hospital achieve and improve its life-saving procedures by returning for checkups as St. Jude researchers monitor the long-term results of therapy.
Rose, who along with his family helped with presentation of the Landers’ donation at the FESJC awards ceremony last year, has been employed at Landers for seven years. He and his wife, Dawn, have a 2-year-old son Matthew.
“We’d been told that because of the protocol of chemotherapy and radiation we wouldn’t be able to have children, but we’ve welcomed a son as a true miracle in our lives,” Rose said.
“St. Jude has done so much for me. It is an honor and pleasure to do anything I can for them, no matter how small. It’s a blessing to be involved. When I was doing those fund-raising things as a kid, I never expected it would eventually benefit me. And now to be working for an employer who is involved and understands . . . well, it just amazes me how many ‘coincidences’ there are.”
The courtesy car involvement last year was exciting, said Ritchey, who along with Landers vice president and managing partner Don Kitchens have been supportive of the FESJC and numerous community projects for years, especially in sports.
“We were a little nervous last year because no one single dealer had ever bitten this off by themselves, but we jumped in, and it really turned out to be a blessing to us,” Ritchey said. “As it turned out, the car market went up about 20 percent and there was a shortage of inventory, and we would have lost sales because of lack of availability.
“But we had these cars already available and they made our year.”
Ritchey said that more than 30 of the vehicles were sold before being loaned to the tournament and that all the cars were sold within 75 days after use by the golf professionals.
Each car had a distinctive, custom-made display combining the FESJC and Landers logos across the rear window.
“We had customers who took pictures of their cars with the decals on them so they would have them for their scrapbooks,” Ritchey said. “So with that kind of excitement and response we are happy to furnish cars again this year. We didn’t even blink when we were given the opportunity to do it again.”
The logo display that was provided in cooperation with the Bartlett-based LSI specialty company earned a prestigious “Best Practices” marketing-advertising award from the PGA TOUR.
“I don’t play golf. I don’t own a set of golf clubs,” said Ritchey, who has served on the tournament’s volunteer sales committee. “But I enjoy watching the players and I understand the value of having this tournament in our area.
”We believe it’s important for Memphis and the Mid-South to have a PGA TOUR event, and we look at it as a major league franchise. We think it improves the quality of life. A lot of cities can only wish that they have something like this event, and we’re delighted to be involved.”
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