PCS Story Contest Winner
by PCSgrades Staff - September 29th, 2021
PCSgrades, in partnership with Shyft, The Home Depot, and Radisson Hotels Americas, is excited to announce the winner of their 2021 PCS Story Contest.
During the month of August, military and veteran families were invited to share their most memorable PCS story. Entrants had the chance to win a fully-funded PCS move from Shyft, a major gift card from The Home Depot, or 300,000 Radisson Rewards Americas Points. After receiving hundreds of entries in the contest, a panel of judges evaluated the stories based on entertainment, inspirational, and emotional value.
We hoped to hear real PCS stories from real military families, and boy, did you all deliver! There were humorous stories of things that went wrong during moves, frustrating stories of families caught in the middle of changing orders, and downright spooky stories of getting lost in the middle of nowhere. We will be sharing the winning stories here on our blog over the next few weeks.
Today we are announcing our Grand Prize winner! Nancy Eberhardt, an Air Force spouse, earned her family a fully-funded move from Shyft, plus 300,000 Radisson Rewards Americas Points to use during their next PCS move. She won the judges over with a PCS story that is both humorous and horrifying. Eberhardt told a tale of moving with four children, a flat tire, a lost hotel reservation, and a chimney full of cockroaches:
“With four kids and a husband working till the very last day, we piled into the car with sore bodies from cleaning and checking out of Housing five hours later than planned. We were driving from California to Texas. With a seven-hour drive ahead of us to accomplish that night, beginning our trek at 7 PM wasn’t looking promising. Of course, our car broke down in such a secluded place that we didn’t have cell phone reception to call for help. A scary looking man- who didn’t say a word- pulled over and fixed our car with only the light of the moon and our cell phones.
We finally get to our hotel in the middle of nowhere just to be told our reservation couldn’t be found. With a crying baby and exhausted kids, my husband threatened to sleep in the lobby and a room magically became available for us. The next few days of travel were full of sleepless nights and hotels that were not nearly as nice as the photos.
We finally get to our new duty station, and our belongings are delivered. My husband and I sit down on our couch in our beautiful historic home on base. We put our feet up and begin talking about the crazy adventure this PCS brought us on. That’s when we begin to hear an odd sound coming from the chimney beside us. My husband gets up to see what is going on and one after another, cockroaches begin falling into the fireplace and scurrying around our house. It was then I spent the next year in that home never walking barefoot and developing a deep fear of one crawling on me in my sleep.”
Congratulations to the Eberhardt family! PCSgrades, Shyft, The Home Depot, and Radisson Hotels Americas are all happy that we can help during your next PCS move, and we certainly hope things go more smoothly–and more bug-free–this time around.
The PCS Story Contest judging panel included: Besa Pinchotti of NMFA (National Military Family Association), Cameron Cruse of R. Riveter, Penny Bolden of Blue Star Families, Lori Simmons of the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year Program, Natasha Harth, the 2016 Military Spouse of the Year, Whitney Armstrong of MSAN (Military Spouse Advocacy Network), Sam Meek of Sandboxx, and Maria Reed of Moving with the Military.
