MMaakkining Wg Winine e for a Cfor a Caauusse:e: GIRLS GONE WINE BY BOB BURKE any Oklahomans know about Girls Gone Wine Hutchings. At an auction to sell the new wine, the first case M(GGW), the innovative and fun boutique winery of wine brought $750 and the remainder of the batch of and funky gift shop in Hochatown near Broken 360 bottles sold immediately. Hutchings lost her fight with Bow Lake in southeast Oklahoma. However, the rocket-like cancer and died in January 2008. retail ascension of GGW is perhaps overshadowed by the Friends 4 Life is still produced to honor Hutchings’ production of a series of wines to assist worthy causes. passion for education. For each bottle sold, $7 goes GGW, created by friends Chandra Rickey, Michelle into a scholarship fund that funded scholarships for the Finch-Walker, and Rhonda Reed, opened for business April education of her children, Hunter and Haley. GGW formed 1, 2006. Because they had worked for government agencies a partnership with East Central University in Ada, Finch- and could “never give anything away,” the girls opened with Walker’s alma mater, and Southeastern Oklahoma State the philosophy that GGW would give something away every University, Rickey and Reed’s alma mater, to provide day. It might be a corkscrew or a free glass of wine, but it was scholarships for Broken Bow High School students who “something” and gave the girls the desire to do more. attend one of the two universities. Since 2008, 34 recipients That opportunity came when Shawn Hutchings, have been awarded more than $225,000 through the a Broken Bow scholarship program. schoolteacher and In 2011, the trio summer wine girl at launched a new label, GGW, was battling “b’ARK,” to donate $4 breast cancer. To raise per bottle to support funds to help with a local animal rescue Hutchings’ medical organization, Animal, expenses, GGW Rescue & Kare (ARK). produced a new wine, ARK was the brainchild “Friends 4 Life,” with a of the late Patt Webb label that depicted the and banker Robyn three founders and Batson. The initiative The founders of Girls Gone Wine, from left, Chandra Rickey, Rhonda Reed, and Michelle Finch-Walker. 25 35