KEYS KIDS CATCH ‘EM UP IN YOUTH FISHING TOURNAMENT

Sheriff Rick Ramsay thanks Mallory Meier, 7, for donating her first-place prize of a bike to another little girl who didn’t have a bike of her own at home. MANDY MILES/Keys Weekly

Seven-year-old Mallory Meier took first place on March 13, when 160 or so Lower Keys kids lined the bridge to No Name Key for the annual Kids Wooden Bridge Fishing Challenge. And then she demonstrated what makes a good winner.

Hosted by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and Lower Keys Rotary Club, the annual fishing tournament provides each kid with a free fishing rod to take home, along with prizes in a variety of categories. 

The top six finishers won a new bike, but Mallory had recently gotten a new bike of her own, and decided to donate her prize to the little girl who came in seventh place in the tournament.

“She was really little. She only came up to here on me,” said Mallory, gesturing to her own ribcage to show the height of the other little girl. 

“And my mom had bought me a new bike earlier this year, so I gave her the one I won with my 37-inch nurse shark,” Mallory said proudly on March 22, when Sheriff Rick Ramsay invited her to his office to thank her for her generosity and sportsmanship.

“Although she had won one of the bikes, Mallory saw that another girl was upset that she didn’t get a bike,” Ramsay told the Keys Weekly. “Mallory decided to donate her new bike to the other girl. And that’s why I invited her here to the office to congratulate her for being just that kind of kid.”

Ramsay gave Mallory a “swag bag” of items bearing the MCSO logo: pencils, pens, rain ponchos, a slap bracelet and other items.

Mallory said she wants to make her donation an annual tradition. She also spent part of the pandemic painting pictures of rainbows and trading them for donations in her Ramrod Key neighborhood. 

“I raised about $200 and I donated that money to the nurses at the hospital so they could have PPE gear,” she said.