Rex Kremer was top player of the evening, turned in a perfect scorecard, and picked up a mess of rating points. While on the topic of Rex, he also played two interesting phonies this evening. Both the words alm* and innard* are no good. What do they have in common? The answer is below (^). Josh Kassel was the bingo king for the first time ever by turning in 13 bingos in seven games. 

We had a contest for the highest scoring play containing a word relating to Independence Day. The rules for this contest stated to "be creative. If you can justify a word as relating to the holiday in a sentence, we'll accept it as an entry. We had three "creative" entries:
  1. TRAILED as in "The street sweepers TRAILED the Independence Day parade." (Ed Saunders for 84 points)
  2. INSWATHE as in "For the Independence Day parade, they had to INSWATHE the men portraying the 
      fife and drum players and the flag carrier." (Ed Saunders for 89 points)
  3. BUTTERS as in "He BUTTERS his corn on the cob [at the 4th of July barbecue]." (Rex Kremer for 
      66 points)
After careful deliberation of the contest committee (read "I flipped a coin"), I am awarding the prize to Ed Saunders. Ed also picks up the prize for the High Win with a 454-point victory.

The Triple-Triple jackpot is at $28.50. Ed Saunders and Josh Kassel were the only to score in the Alphabet Bingo contest, and Ed is still in first place with 10 points. The 9+ Bingo Jackpot and the "Deja Bingo" Jackpot both went unclaimed, and we're throwing some change in those as well. 

Next Session (10 July) will feature the following contests:
- Low Win - A prize will be awarded for the lowest winning score in a game.  (~a quarter of dues collected)
- Monsoon Madness Contest - A prize will be awarded to the highest-scoring play that contains a word relating to the much needed monsoon (e.g., RAIN, HABOOB, FLOODED, MONSOON, etc.). Be creative! If you can justify a word as relating to the monsoon in a sentence (e.g., "The weather PATTERN is not quite right for a chance of rain"), we'll accept it as an entry (~a quarter of dues collected).
- Triple-Triple Jackpot - A jackpot of $28.50 plus an eighth of the evening's dues will be awarded to any player(s) who scores a Triple-Triple Play.
- 9+ Bingo Jackpot - A jackpot of $0.75 plus a portion of the evening's dues will be awarded to any player(s) who scores a bingo containing nine or more letters. 
"Deja Bingo" Jackpot - A jackpot of $0.75 plus a portion of the evening's dues will be awarded to any player(s) who plays the same bingo more than once in a session.
- Alphabet Bingo - The Alphabet Bingo letter for this session is "J." For each bingo you play that begins with the letter J, you score one point. ($26 Jackpot)