CHIEF LOGAN STATE PARK — The annual Friends of the NRA Banquet will be returning this November to the Earl Ray Tomblin Convention Center in Logan County.

Tickets are available for the event now, at $40 per person. Last year’s event was considered a major success and organizers hope that the worries about the economy this year do not take their toll on what was an extremely well enjoyed evening for dozens of outdoors enthusiasts and their families.

In addition to a delicious meal at the facility known for fine dining, the event will feature opportunities to win firearms, high end cutlery and other sporting goods through raffles and games of chance.

Chairman Keno Muncy noted that there will be more games this year for one simple reason - “We want more people to walk away with a prize,” he explained.

Jim Kilgore met with members of the Logan Area Friends of NRA to discuss this year’s event recently and went over a list of exclusive items made for the event by the top manufacturers of outdoors products sold in the USA.

“Our sponsors this year will have some really nice stuff,” Kilgore said, noting that usually firearms like the custom shotgun that is this year’s major prize are usually the most important items.

Kilgore noted that for $2,500 a sponsor can do such firearms as a “mare’s leg, .45-70 caliber lever action pistol similar to the one utilized by Steve McQueen in the classic Western TV series “Wanted: Dead or Alive” or a modernized 1911 pistol. Other firearms discussed included Bolt Action rifles, pump action shotguns, double action auto pistols and perhaps single action guns for traditionalists.

“This will be a sportsman’s dream event,” Daniel Adkins noted.

Keno Muncy discussed adding another item to the raffle list- a .22 caliber Smith & Wesson M&P pistol with a pink frame.

“We had many ladies at last year’s banquet and it is a popular and hard to find item,” Muncy noted.

Takira Muncy and Jim Kilgore discussed the idea of having a special “Women’s table” with items designed to appeal to outdoors ladies. Other members agreed it would be a good idea.

Proceeds from the event will go to fund the shooting sports in West Virginia noted Daniel Adkins, who pointed out that the Coalfield Shooters and Friends of NRA had planned to apply for several grants to improve the shooting range and do other things. Some improvements have already taken place.

“Last month, Joe Carroll, Johnny Brumfield, Kermit Workman, Steve Mayo, Ryan McGlothen, and I went to Cabella’s to pick up the clay thrower,” Jim Morrison noted. “The $350 thrower was sold at cost to the club for its $220 cost, and the club purchased the $40 two year warranty. Cabela’s also donated three nice shooting vests, at a retail price of $99 each, and two boxes of clays. The full retail of everything the club received was well over $600. Altogether the club spent less than half of what retail would have been on these items. We owe Cabela’s thanks for supporting the shooting sports. Chris Walls of Cabela’s is the one who helped orchestrate this whole thing, and he stated what the club is doing is great because there is nothing else like us in this part of the state.”

Jim Kilgore noted that October 24 is the deadline for the Logan Area Friends of the NRA and the Coalfields Shooters Association to submit their grant application to the Friends of NRA. Kilgore noted that one of the ideas- a youth shooting team, would be a good one. Earlier at a CSA meeting President Roger Ramey had brought up the idea of some improvements for the CSA’s home shooting range that a grant could help out with. Following that meeting several members of the CSA went to the new Cabella’s store in South Charleston and brought back a clay pigeon throwing machine for sporting clays events.

Kilgore said that other grants make it possible for local kids to tour Washington and meet with their congressmen and senators via a scholarship program.