From the Southwest Council:

As most of you know by now, Bill O’Kelly, past president of the Southwest Council and of Sierra Pacific Fly Fishers, passed Aug. 12. If you never had the opportunity to attend a fly fishing show with Bill, you missed an experience. He loved to cart around boxes of books to procure signatures from noted show attendees and authors. He was forever crunching his spreadsheet to see who else was available to sign his books. It was such a delight to witness his excitement when he would preview a show program and realize how many signatures would be his. Needless to say, his UPS bills were extraordinary.

His family has asked for our assistance to sell this vast collection and this is the first step. If you click here, you will get a Word document listing almost 1,200 titles. Many are first editions. If you are interested, please reply to this email (specialprojects@swcffi.org) with the title AND item number (first number on the line). We will find the book to ascertain its condition and quality and get back to you with a price.

If you know you would prefer a signed copy or a first edition, please note this, or on the other hand, if you just want a reading copy, please indicate that as well.

Other than whether something is hardcover, paperback, signed or personalized to Bill, we do not know what some of Bill’s other notes on the spreadsheet may mean.  We will let you know if we figure it out as we proceed.

Nothing about this process will be fast so we ask for your patience as this moves forward. Once we know which book(s) you hope to purchase (since there may be multiple offers), we can discuss delivery options. With over 20 clubs in SoCal and Nevada, we should be able to get books from place to place and maybe avoid some shipping costs.

All net proceeds will be going directly to the family.

Michael Schweit, Special Projects Director SWCFFI