President's Message

Fellow members of the sporting community,

Our 33^rd annual awards banquet was another great weekend.  We had indoor and outdoor ranges and, in spite of poor weather on Saturday, had nearly 170 shooters.  The Parkersburg Big Reds archery team showed up in force Friday night at the indoor shoot and filled up three tables at the awards banquet.  We had at least 357 members, vendors and guests in the banquet hall for the meal, awards, Tim Wells presentation, auctions and games, so I don’t see how anyone can be disappointed with the participation.  As good as the banquet was this year, we are determined to have an even better one next year.

I personally want to thank everyone who helped out at the banquet whether it was making donations, soliciting donations, manning the range or games, conducting seminars and for all the behind the scenes work that it takes to make this even happen.  I hesitate to start naming individuals because I know I would leave out someone, and I wouldn’t want to make that mistake.  I’m extremely grateful for all of you who put in hours of your time in order to make the banquet a success.

I know lots of attendees went home with prizes and auctions items.  We gave away 50 bucket prizes, had 12 silent auction items, had four big prizes for our corner games and in the live auction there were great bargains on over 30 items including hunts, bows, guns, knives, and other popular merchandise.  I don’t know how many items were won in the general raffle, but it must have been a couple of hundred.   I can’t forget the table game either since I won a Herb Derr knife and a Gene Blackshire special WVBA turkey call.  Nearly everybody went home with something besides memories.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot:  That card game sold out in a flash and another lucky winner took home a S&W Body Guard .380 pistol.

The winners of our charity raffle were: Brian Johnson (S&W M&P 15), John Pauley (Mission Bow), James D. Jones (IPad) and Melissa Cecil ($500 cash).  Congratulations to each of them and thanks to everyone who supported the charity raffle.  Contributions will be made to Archery in the Schools, Hunters Helping the Hungry and other worthwhile charitable causes.

Last weekend volunteers from the WVBA and several other groups assisted the Division of Natural Resources in conducting the 8^th Annual Archery in the Schools state tournament.  This is a great program for getting kids involved in the sport of shooting a bow.  There are so many schools participating now that there has to be regional competitions to send only the best shooters to the tournament because the number of shooters wishing to participate is too large to fit in the Charleston Civic Center which is the largest venue in the state for this activity.  The WVBA has a grant program for helping new AIS programs get started and to assist those already in existence.  Check the web site for more information on how you can take advantage of this program for your school.

Saturday, April 13, is the state high school/middle school 3-D tournament at the Huntington Archery Club facility in Ona, WV.  Registration begins at noon and competition begins at 1:00.  For information about this event contact WVBA Vice-President John Drangmeister at 304-562-9730.

 As the events of March come to a close, we continue to keep an eye on pending legislation and upon the recommended changes in the regulations for the upcoming hunting, fishing and trapping seasons.

And that’s the bottom line.

Bryan Elkins, President WVBA