Kellie/Troy/Nashville reptile show
Sorry guys...I have stayed away from the computer until this morning. When Kellie (who used the last name Whiteboro with us) contacted us about a month ago to get a table, we told her no. Her husband then talked to mine and said they would donate a table to us if we would come and do a presentation with our animals and bring some of our shelter animals to show. She also said she would be doing raffles and they would split the money with us with our "half" being donated to the shelter. We agreed to going on Saturday. A few days before the show, she called and was insistent we be there for the whole three days. I finally told her we would do Sat and Sun but I had another commitment on Friday and wouldn't be there. On Saturday, I was stunned to see so few vendors, especially when she kept saying there were almost 200 vendors and she was almost sold out with tables and had pre-sold 6000 tickets. Fortunately, we live 1 1/2 hours away so we just drove back and forth and didn't have lodging expenses.
Now, where were the newscrews from channel 2 and 4??? A security person came to tell us they were coming through and Kellie told us but I never saw anyone. What I did see were vendors out a lot of money, especially those who had to buy a $275 wildlife permit to sell colubrids and didn't sell enough colubrids to make up even part of that expense, much less the other expenses.
Oh, the raffle money they said they would split with our reptile shelter??? Well, it left with them....all of it. They snuck out way before all the vendors left. We looked for them before we left and found nothing left of them...not even their kids.
Kellie, you didn't rip me off when you stole the shelter's half of the raffle money you promised (by the way, who else did you promise it to???). You ripped off the shelter's residents. But I guess you really needed the money since you wrote worthless checks to a lot of people. Do you realize that writing bad checks is a criminal offense??? I see bars in your future...and not the drinking kind, either.
I met some vendors there that I hope to see at other shows in the future, especially the guys from KC and the cricket man and even though I live near Tom of glasscages.com, we've never gotten to talk before but we had lots of time to talk over the weekend.
Oh, and one of the things that was raffled off was a green annie. My friend won one of the drawings. I went to the front with her. They told her to choose between the annie and a volcano mister. I told my friend to take the annie. My friend, who has never owned a snake, thought I was nuts. She later realized I wanted the annie before a child or someone who has never had a snake before took it. The annie was donated by an individual who lives in Nashville. The annie is at our house right now and at least we are knowledgeable and capable of taking care of the snake. Someone else may not have and the animal would have suffered.
We weren't there to sell animals or products. Unfortunately, the other vendors were there for that purpose and they were lured in by blatant lies and I think it's a safe bet to say that no one sold enough to cover the expenses they put out to be at the show.
I am from near Troy's home town in California. I hate to admit it, but we were friends years ago, before I really got to know him. I actually stumbled upon this thread as I was "googling him" to see what he was doing as i heard a rumor that he had a recording contract with a country music recording studio out there in TN. I would like to say I'm surprised by this, but that statement would be as false as the things he reportedly stated about the show. Saw the web site too as well as a write up in the Tennessean.com
is still his best move.