The First People in Line at the Scheels Grand Opening

Saturday morning, over 2,500 from all over the region gathered in Billings for the Grand Opening of the new Scheels store.  And a few brave souls camped out overnight to be the first in line.

The first people in line were this group from Columbus High School.  Padon, Sarah, Josiah and Hollee showed up at 4:30 pm on Friday.  They didn't sleep a wink.  Luckily, Padon brought his guitar to entertain the rest of the campers.

This guy was sound asleep when we arrived at 5:30 am on Saturday morning.  He started camping out around 10 pm on Friday.

These ladies showed up at 4 am, when the line had already started to stretch down the sidewalk.

Eventually, three separate lines stretched across the parking lot.  In spite of an estimated crowd of 2,500, the lines moved quickly once the doors opened at 9 am.  By 9:17 am, all three lines of shoppers were inside the store.

None of them was happier than Nancy Philippe, who won a $1,000 Scheels Gift Card in the Boatload of Cash contest.  She woke up at 4:15 am and came all the way from Powell, Wyoming to see the store.  Scheels filled a pontoon boat with goldfish crackers and encouraged people to take their best guess.  Nancy guessed 17,500, just over the exact total of 17,490 goldfish in the boat.