Table Tennis Leagues: "Roy & Janet's Place"
September 29, 2009

Inside Roy & Janet's Place

by Larry Smith

"Roy & Janet's Place" - The Sierra Vista (AZ) Table Tennis Club’s New Home

The Sierra Vista Table Tennis Club is one of the oldest TT clubs in the state of Arizona and was the first to have a USATT league. We have around 35 members, which is not a lot compared to many clubs but we still have a lot of fun.

The opening of our new facility was for the Senior Olympics in January of 2009. Since then we have moved our league play to this facility. We have hosted friendly games with 4 other clubs in Southern Arizona and we will host some of the games for our new team play, “Southern Arizona Friendship Cup”, which will be a first in Arizona starting in October of this year.

Roy Pugh

Roy & Janet's Place came about after the death of his wife of many years. Roy was having a difficult time coping with his loss and sought activities to get his self back into social contact. Roy found our club, playing in a local recreational center and was impressed with the friendly treatment from the club members, especially Janet Kempf, who has since become his life partner.

Roy fell in love with the game of table tennis and decided that he could build a facility that would give our club a much nicer place to play and wouldn't have limited days and hours like the city owned facility. With Janet’s help, a couple of year’s time and more than $300,000 out of his own pocket, we have a beautiful table tennis facility, the nicest in the state!

Roy & Janet's Place is over 7000 square feet with 6 tournament tables, a practice/warm up table, a serving practice table and a table with a robot. This facility has many skylights so most days we don't need any additional lighting. Remember this is Arizona, lots of sunshine.

Our club donates a very small amount to Roy to help pay the utilities. We help with the maintenance, cleaning and grounds up keep, a very small price to pay for such a wonderful facility.

Since Roy's Place in not within the city limits, he has hopes that some day the city will annex the area. “Sooner or later this is going to be part of the city. If the city ever expands here I could even donate this place to the city. This place is for exercise and for people to have fun.” Roy said. “I want to give something back, I can't take it with me.”

Outside Roy & Janet's Place