Beat the drums for Hugh and Betty

LAOAG CITY—In 1970, the former Betty Domingo was chosen queen of this city—the rooftop of the Ilocano nation.
As Miss Laoag City, she reigned over the fiesta that year. Still celebrated in carnival-like revelry, the annual event continues to beckon the natives to return home with visitors in tow.
Now 61-year-old, Betty Domingo Galyean brought her husband here for the festival and a reunion with classmates as they marked the 45th year of their graduation from Ilocos Norte National High School.
Hugh Galyean voices over CBS Sports promotions for the fabled Southeastern Conference (SEC) college football tournament in the United States—where most National Football League professionals—come from.
Betty felt nervous because this is her 67-year -old hubby’s first visit to the land of her birth. Her anxiety disappeared when he relished “pinapaitan” (bile-flavored goat meat delicacy) with her high school buddies.
Hugh said Ilocano food reminds him of his upbringing in rural Texas: lots of veggies with “every part of a cow or pig for meat and flavor.”
“I find the people here very warm, receptive and hospitable,” Hugh noted during breakfast at the swank Fort Ilocandia Hotel and Resort, a sports tourism hub catering mainly to overseas Chinese visitors.
He said the urban myth that lawlessness grips the islands appears just that, an urban myth.
Hugh served 30 years in state and federal law enforcement, including a year’s tour of duty as a counter terrorism adviser in war-torn Afghanistan.
After retirement, he harnessed his creative side, becoming a broadcaster of sorts, a “voice over artist” for commercials, including spots for the US Army and a sports outreach program of German automaker Mercedes-Benz, video game characters and now CBS Sports promos.
At CBS, Hugh says he gets to be the guy “with the Texas drawl” fostering legendary Southeastern conference rivalries like Alabama versus Louisiana State, if not the SEC football championship game itself.
Betty has been a registered nurse for the US Department of Veteran Affairs for the last 35 years. She plans to call it a career soon.
The couple’s not only here on vacation from Livermore, California, home to them and their family.
Livermore is a bedroom community, about 15 km from San Francisco and Oakland, He says he regularly sings the national anthem during the Oakland Athletics’ baseball home games.
Hugh, the ex-cop, disclosed that they are also probing and “making research” for a possible retirement place here, at least for a part of the year. The government’s drumbeat should be sounded loud and often for the likes of Hugh and Betty Galyean.
It is more fun in the Philippines, a haven for retirees and a destination for sports enthusiasts.
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Of the 49 prospective Filipino Olympians still fighting tooth and nail to earn regular slots to the 2016 Rio Olympics, 12 are scholars funded by the Olympic Solidarity Fund. Of the 12, four are taekwondo athletes.
A little over $1 million, the same for each member countries of the International Olympic Committee, are doled out by Solidarity from the profits of the IOC each Olympic year.
Olympic Solidarity scholars are more likely to punch tickets to Brazil via the backdoor should they not make it directly via qualifying tournaments. That is if they meet the minimum qualifying standards of their respective sports.