Longtime supporter Michael Bishop spent $25 to adopt a quack pack of six ducks to enter the Child Advocacy Center ’s annual Duck Derby.

“I thought how awesome it would be to spend the night at the Peabody ” as part of the Memphis Blues prize package), Bishop said. “I never thought I would win the grand prize.”

But one of his ducks dashed across the finish line first among 12,000 ducks during the annual race Saturday on Stones River . CAC’s Executive Director Sharon De Boer presented Bishop with a $5,000 check this week.

Bishop planned to deposit the check in the bank immediately.

“I’m not going to go crazy with it,” Bishop said with a laugh. “People at work told me it will stay there until the end of time.”

Bishop, who graduated from La Vergne High School and MTSU, first donated to the Child Advocacy Center a few years ago when Tennessee ’s former first lady Andrea Conte walked to raise funds for the center. His employer, Verizon, was one of the sponsors and his mother, Gloria, knows Conte.

 “I know you do good work,” Bishop told De Boer. “I found out later a friend’s kids were affected by you.”

 “We make a difference,” De Boer said.

“The Child Protective Investigative Team really makes a difference in the lives of abused children and their families in our community,” De Boer said.

Since it was founded 12 years ago, the center staff has helped more than 7,500 child abuse victims, child sexual abuse victims, and drug endangered children in Rutherford and Cannon counties.

Bishop smiled as he thanked De Boer for the grand prize.

“I think it’s wonderful that Michael won the first prize in the Duck Derby.  He is such a nice person and one of the Child Advocacy Center' s loyal supporters,” De Boer saida