DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
Rear Adm. Robert Conway Jr. presented an oversized key to Terry Kirk-Manetzke, who won a Navy-wide drawing for a Jeep Liberty. Her husband, Dan Manetzke, right, a combat systems officer aboard the USS Russell, and George Irion, left, AT&T director of consumer communications, stood by.
When Terry Kirk-Manetzke got a call at 2 in the morning last Friday telling her she had just won a 2002 Jeep Liberty sports utility vehicle, she brushed it off as a prank call. Pearl wife wins SUV
in Navy contestA new Jeep Liberty is the prize in a
drawing co-sponsored by AT&TBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comHer husband, Lt. Dan Manetzke, assigned to the destroyer USS Russell, also thought it was a joke.
"After all, I am a jokester," Manetzke, 41, said. "I like to joke and pull these king of pranks on my shipmates and I thought they were just getting back to me."
But Friday the Navy couple found out it was for real as they examined three 2002 Jeeps lined up on a Pearl Harbor pier in front of the Russell.
The sponsors of the raffle -- AT&T and the Navy Morale, Welfare and Recreation program -- had brought a patriotic selection of burgundy, white and blue Jeeps for them to choose from.
"I'm going with Navy blue," said Kirk-Manetzke. "I'm staying with the Navy all the way."
Hers was the winning ticket that Rear Adm. Steven Tomaszeski, who heads the Navy Personnel Command in Tennessee, drew out of a barrel of more than 3,000 entry forms on Oct. 9.
Kirk-Manetzke initially entered the raffle in March while her husband was on a six-month deployment. She and other spouses and sailors attended a Pearl Harbor MWR-sponsored career decision fair hosted by Rear Adm. Robert Conway, commander of Navy Region Hawaii.
The gatherings are designed to provide sailors and their families with information to encourage them to re-enlist.
Manetzke said the couple had been discussing the possibility of buying a truck before he was transferred to Norfolk, Va. next year.
The second prize was three tickets, airline transportation and accommodations to the Dec. 7 Army-Navy football game in New Jersey. The third place winner won $1,000 in gift certificates that can be used at all MWR services, activities or programs.
