The two women who asked why this game should not have a ballroom of its own.
Fern Oliphant and Sheryl Perry run Destination Mah Jongg, the company behind the Mah Jongg World Championship and a whole touring calendar of tournaments besides. At the end of 2015, announcing their plans, Fern wanted to turn the traveling tournament world into "a true upscale destination Mah Jongg event": a hotel, a ballroom, a weekend you would dress for, with a real prize at the end of it. The first championship followed in July 2016 at the Westgate in Las Vegas, with nearly a hundred players chasing a $5,000 grand prize, and the first title went to Arlene Waite of Florida.
What Prim admired most was how sure they were that the game deserved it. Fern was plainly proud that players arrive in their thirties and right up to their eighties. Sheryl, who teaches the game herself, said the basics are not hard to learn but that mastery takes time. Prim called that a teacher's sentence, and the whole spirit of a championship: anyone can sit down, and getting good is the adventure.
Written from what the letter said. Read the letter for the whole of it.