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Another NRA Petition Candidate

July 1, 2026

by John Richardson 1 Comment

Chuck Rowe is seeking to be on the NRA Board of Directors ballot for 2027 by petition. I supported him as a write-in candidate in this past election as did Jeff Knox. Chuck was a runner-up in the 2025 election and briefly served on the Board.

While on the Board, Chuck did yeoman’s work in rationalizing competition rules of the NRA so that it fit in with both international rules and the CMP’s rules. To me, that was a thankless job and not one that I’d want to undertake. Fortunately, Chuck was there.

In his daily life, Chuck is a Certified Public Accountant with extensive experience as a CEO and in private equity. We need business experience like that on the Board.

Just as importantly, Chuck has served as captain of the US Rifle Team, is a NRA National Championship title holder, and received the NRA Master Distinguished Coach Medal. Having someone with these credentials helps broaden the perspectives on the Board.

Chuck’s petition link is below:

https://nra.directnominations.net/Petitions/Sign/574c3ee4-3d5a-40ed-bce0-d7ab1d6142f9

I have sent Chuck’s name to the Nominating Committee for consideration. However, a dually nominated, by the Nominating Committee and by petition, is a stronger candidate.

I would encourage all voting members to give Chuck’s petition your consideration. As a reminder, a NRA voting member is either a life member of whatever level or an annual member with five or more years of continuous, unbroken membership.

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Petitions For The 2027 NRA Ballot

June 15, 2026

by John Richardson 3 Comments

As I learned myself in 2024 when I first started gathering signatures to be on the 2025 NRA ballot for the Board, it is better to start early. Once the Nominating Committee meets and issues its report, there only remain 45 days in which to get the required number of signatures and submit them. Importantly, that is a hard 45 days with no exceptions made for natural disasters, war, or other calamities.

Some of the candidates below may also get nominated by the Nominating Committee. Frankly, in my opinion, a dually nominated candidate is stronger and was the reason I chose to continue the petition process even after I was nominated by the Nominating Committee.

The candidates below include two sitting Board members, two who served limited terms replacing two who had resigned, and one candidate who has never served on the Board but brings lots of experience.

If you are a voting member of the NRA, you are eligible to sign these petitions. A voting member is a Life Member of whatever level or an Annual Member with five or more years of continuous, unbroken membership. The electronic petition process will kick you out if you are not eligible to sign the petition or at least that is my understanding.

Todd Vandermyde

Todd is serving a one-year term on the Board of Directors. Todd brings the experience of having fought in the trenches in a blue state for gun rights as well as serving as president of the largest gun club in Illinois. He asks the questions that others either don’t think of or are too timid to ask. He lives and breathes the Second Amendment and ways to advance it. Among the board committees Todd serves on are Legal Affairs and Legislative Policy. Having nominated Todd twice for the Board, I can say without reservation he has my full support and we need people like Todd on the Board.

Todd’s petition: https://nra.directnominations.net/Petitions/Sign/1aaf6d83-59ab-4359-8155-78ebc00caa63

Huey Laugesen

Huey was elected to a one-year term on the Board of Directors in April. He is the executive director of the Colorado Shooting Sports Association and has brought new life to that organization. Before being elected to the Board, Huey served with me on the Membership Committee and I thought he advanced effective ways to reinvigorate our membership recruiting efforts. I endorsed him in the 2026 election and would be proud to do it again. He is now also serving on the Legislative Policy Committee with me where he will be bringing, like Todd above, the experience of fighting for rights in a blue state. Huey may be the youngest director on the Board but far from the least experienced.

Huey’s petition: https://nra.directnominations.net/Petitions/Sign/1b5b06d4-d28c-415e-abeb-33da7fb00ccf

David Mitten

David was part of the ElectANewNRA team in 2025 and finished a runner-up. When former NRA President Bob Barr resigned, David took his place on the Board. He was not on the 2026 ballot but is running this time. He currently serves as a non-director member of three NRA committees – Collegiate, Education & Training, and Gun Collectors. David is a retired teacher from Ohio who, among other things, helped develop the curriculum for the Ohio Hunter Education program.

David’s petition: https://nra.directnominations.net/Petitions/Sign/761a1fe8-b495-489f-a92b-8870b45a8aa0

Mark Shuell

Mark was nominated for the Board in 2025 but finished a runner-up. He assumed a seat on the Board when Gene Roach resigned. Mark is a retired financial planner from Michigan who has been very active in grassroots activism in advancement of the 2nd Amendment. He won the 2023 NRA-ILA Jay M. Littlefield Volunteer of the Year award for his efforts. He currently serves on both the Action Shooting and Grassroots Outreach Committees as a non-director member. Mark in 2025 was one of those candidates left in“no man’s land”. Despite this, based upon multiple conversations with him, his heart lies with reform. He was endorsed in 2025 by Jeff Knox which probably didn’t endear him to the Old Guard.

Mark’s petition: https://nra.directnominations.net/Petitions/Sign/e420c4e0-dd37-4f91-84a3-5bb5bd39cf68

Chuck Cunningham

Chuck is currently the Director of State, Local, and International Affairs at the Veterans Administration. In years prior to that he served as a Senior VP for Government Affairs for the non-profit Securing America’s Future Energy among other such positions. Much more importantly, he worked for NRA-ILA for almost 17 years where he served alternately as Director of State and Local Affairs and as Director of Federal Affairs. To say he would be a valuable addition to the Board is an understatement. Finally, he is assisting in raising funds for the Virginia Militia Clause lawsuit which I recently wrote about.

Chuck’s petition: https://nra.directnominations.net/Petitions/Sign/0d00d119-aa6c-476e-9894-4617a1294855

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My NRA Committee Assignments

May 14, 2026

by John Richardson 11 Comments

While I am waiting for the full list of who is assigned to what NRA committee, here are my committee assignments for 2026-2027.

Audit (elected as previously noted)
Membership
Legislative Policy
State and Local Subcommittee of Legislative Policy
Hunting and Wildlife Conservation

I served on all of these committees in the previous year and had requested to serve on them again. Of course, the Audit Committee is elected by the Board of Directors and is not merely an appointment by the President.

I have talked with some other directors who did not get all their requested committees. I think one reason I was able to get everything I requested is that I am retired and have the time to devote to serving on them. Not everyone has this sort of flexibility.

I see a direct correlation between what we do in the Legislative Policy and Hunting & Wildlife Conservation Committees and in building or rebuilding our membership.

When the full list of all committee assignments is released, I will post it. I don’t think it will be marked Privileged and Confidential.

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NRA Annual Meeting Report, Part 4

April 27, 2026

by John Richardson 2 Comments

There were a number of bylaw changes proposed in advance of the NRA Annual Meeting. In my opinion, none was more contentious nor more change-oriented than the proposal to restructure the Executive Committee. The bylaw as originally proposed would have reduced the Executive Committee in size from 20 members to nine. The structure would have been changed from 20 at-large members selected from the Board of Directors to the three officers, the committee chairs of Audit, Finance, Legal Affairs, and Membership, and two at-large members from the Board as a whole.

President Bill Bachenberg presented the bylaw proposal to the members at the Meeting of Members for comment in an effort to get the pro and con arguments on the table. While I cannot speak for all of these Meeting of Members as I’ve only attended a few, this seemed to be a radical change in favor of transparency. The bylaw proposal was also discussed extensively in a Board Town Hall held the week before leaving for Houston.

The bylaw change was also discussed in the Bylaws and Resolutions Committee extensively. Both in the Board Town Hall and in this meeting, I was under the impression that the consensus was to enlarge the Executive Committee by two more at-large members and that this change was to be incorporated. In the greater scheme of things, nine versus 11 is not that great of an expansion.

When this bylaw amendment was presented to the Board by the Bylaws and Resolutions Committee in last Monday’s Board meeting, their committee substitute returned to the original nine members. This would have essentially given the President four votes in the committee as he appointed three of the four committee chairs. The Audit Committee chair is selected by the members of the Audit Committee.

After the motion to approve the bylaw change was introduced and seconded, I introduced an amendment to expand the number of at-large members to four and the overall number to 11. You can see my amendment in the embedded document. The feeling of myself and others was this was essential to bring balance to the committee. Frankly, I do not know if the bylaw change would have been passed without this amendment.

Hanging over the debate on this bylaw change were two things. First, members remembered the autocratic rule of past NRA President Charles Cotton. His name was invoked many times throughout the whole meeting as a warning. Second, there was the specter of the Special Litigation Committee which had worked virtually in secret and hand-in-hand with Bill Brewer.

The debate on this bylaw amendment was vigorous but respectful. You had reformers on both sides of the issue. For example, Jeff Knox argued for it while Judge Phil Journey argued against it. I doubt you could find any two who had been more identified with the reform movement within the Board than those two. As an aside, all of this debate happened during open session.

When the amended bylaw change came to a vote, it was a recorded roll call vote which will appear in the Official Journal (aka the American Rifleman and the American Hunter) at a later date. The final vote was 38 yea, 25 nay, and 2 voting present. For the record, I voted in favor of the amended bylaw. I should also note that I had been a member, though briefly, of the previous 20-member Executive Committee.

Key to my vote were a few factors. First, there was now parity between the President and the Board. Second, all meetings of the Executive Committee are open to all Board members. Third, any decision can be overruled by a simple majority of the Board of Directors. Fourth, the restrictions on the powers of the Executive Committee were substantial yet not so onerous as to make them powerless.

One of the many arguments made for the reduction in the size of the Board of Directors is that you cannot get anything done with a Board of 76 directors. Some have argued that the Board should be more like a corporate board with a small number running the affairs of the Association. In one sense, this is what we created with the new reconstituted Executive Committee. It will act like a governance committee while the Board as a whole remains more like a legislative body.

The Bylaws and Resolutions Committee substitute along with my amendment are embedded below. You can see some of my handwritten notes in the PDF.

Executive Committee Bylaw Amendment Download

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NRA Annual Meeting Report, Part 3

April 24, 2026

by John Richardson 6 Comments

One of the biggest portions of the Board meeting held after the Annual Meeting is devoted to elections of officers, trustees, and members of the Audit, Executive, and Nominating Committees. Unlike my first meeting in April 2025 where there were many contested elections with multiple rounds of voting, this year it mostly went smoothly with only a few multiple rounds of voting.

First up was the election of the officers with the following elected by unanimously by acclamation.

President – Bill Bachenberg
First VP – Mark Vaughan
Second VP – Rocky Marshall
Exec VP – Doug Hamlin
Secretary – John Frazer (Was on the ballot because the intended replacement backed out. John will remain in the Secretary’s position with the intention that a replacement found within the next 6 months)
Treasurer – Mike Erstling

After Doug Hamlin was elected, he appointed John Commerford as the Executive Director of ILA and Josh Savani as the Executive Director of General Operations. These appointments were confirmed unanimously.

Surprisingly, there was a contested election for the Chief Compliance Officer. It was between the incumbent Matthew Boyden and Emory “Jack” Hagan who is on the Board of Directors. The winner had to receive 3/4th’s of the vote under New York Not for Profit Corporation Law. Prior to the vote, board counsel Alex Reid informed the Board that under the Final Judgment that two years of severance would have to be paid to Mr. Boyden as he would have been replaced without cause. Both men were given time to make campaign speeches and members could argue for or against a candidate. The vote was 56 for Boyden, 6 for Hagan, and 2 voting present. There were a total of 64 votes cast.

The next election was for the Audit Committee. Nominees are announced by the President and then each is voted on separately. Given it is a committee of the board under NY NPCL, candidates must receive a 3/4th’s vote of those present. This election was held before the Executive Committee because as I will explain in a future post the Executive Committee was restructured and the Audit Committee chair is automatically a member of the committee.

Regis Synan – 55 yea, 0 no, 55 present
Theresa Inacker – 55 yea, 0 no, 55 present
Charlie Beers – 55 yea, 3 no, 64 present
John Richardson – 59 yea, 0 no, 64 present
Jonathan Goldstein – 59 yea, 0 no, 64 present

After this vote, the Audit Committee briefly met. We re-elected Charlie Beers as chair and Regis Synan as vice-chair. We reported this back to the meeting.

Next up was the restructured Executive Committee in which four at-large members were elected. The at-large members were expected to bring strong financial, managerial, legal, or other relevant experience to the committee. Like the Audit Committee, they required a 3/4th’s affirmative vote. The Nominating Committee had nominated Alex Carroll and Anthony Colandro. I nominated Randy Luth who is the CEO of Luth-AR and was the founder of DPMS/Panther Arms prior to its sale to the former Freedom Group. The other nominees were Charlie Hiltunen, Judge Phil Journey, Janet Nyce, and Prof. David Raney. Candidates needed 48 votes to win.

No one was elected in the first round of voting. In the second round of voting, Anthony Colandro with 55 votes and Charlie Hiltunen with 48 votes were elected while David Raney withdrew. For the third round of voting, both Phil Journey and Janet Nyce withdrew giving Alex Carroll and Randy Luth 57 votes by acclamation.

Next up was the NRA Special Conservation Fund aka the Whittington Center board of trustees. Nominated for three-year terms ending in 2029 were Pete Brownell, Philip Gray, Jerry Kraus, Randy Luth, Andrew McEntire, Janet Nyce, and James-Scott Wong. Nominated for a one-year term ending in 2027 was Nick Krallis. The entire slate was elected by acclamation.

There were six nominees for the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund board of trustees. From academia were Prof. F. Lee Francis of Widener University Commonwealth Law School, Prof. Robert Cottrol of George Washington University Law School, Prof. Raymond Diamond of LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, and Prof. Nick Johnson of Fordham University School of Law. Also nominated for reappointment were James (Jim) Porter II and Graham Hill. All six were elected as trustees of the CRDF by acclamation.

The final election was for the Nominating Committee. The committee is composed of six board members and three non-board members. No board member may serve on the Nominating Committee more than once in a three-year period nor if their term expires in the ensuing year.

Nominees from the board were Jason Wilson, Howard Massingill, Jerry Kraus, Larry Finder, Amanda Suffecool, Linda Walker, Knox Williams, Scott Emslie, and Jim Porter. The non-board nominees were Ed Hope, Rick Figueroa, James-Scott Wong, and Jackie Emslie. There were 59 valid ballots which meant a winner had to have at least 30 votes to win.

The six board members of the 2026-2027 Nominating Committee are Amanda Suffecool (40), Howard Massingill (39), Jason Wilson (39), Linda Walker (34), Jerry Kraus (32), and Knox Williams (32). The three non-board members are James-Scott Wong (46), Rick Figueroa (41), and Jackie Emslie (31).

Congratulations to all who won. It is expected that the major committee assignments will be done by this end of this week and the rest soon after. The days of waiting until June or July are over.

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NRA Annual Meeting Report, Part 2

April 23, 2026

by John Richardson 7 Comments

The Annual Compliance Report to Members was released and made available at the Meeting of Members on Saturday, April 18th. It covers activities from January 1 to December 31 of 2025. The report covering 2024 is available in the member’s only section on the NRA website. Just look under “Governance Information.” The 2025 report should be up there sooner than later.

I should add that if you have not registered for access to this, you should. I had one director complaining to me about not being able to print the Bylaws out from within BoardVantage which is the Board’s court-mandated secure portal. He wasn’t aware he could access this information and print the Bylaws from the Governance Information section. It looks like I need to do more to make members (and directors) aware of their ability to access this information which was posted as a result of my transparency resolution that passed at the 2025 Meeting of Members.

The compliance report covers five areas: travel and entertainment expenses; contract negotiations, exceptions, and subsequent payments; related party transactions; whistleblower reports; and independent audit. Rather than rehashing both the reports covering 2024 and 2025, I will just highlight some of the year over year changes.

Travel and entertainment expenses were down by $800,000 in 2025 from the previous year. Two major factors were the locations of the Fall and Winter board meetings and the reduction in number of days of each. The officers elected in 2025 made the decision that the Fall and Winter board meetings would be held in northern Virginia exclusively. This cut down on both lodging and travel expenses for staff. Additionally, starting with the Winter board meeting, the number of days for committee meeting were cut from three to two. Authorization for lodging only began with the day of your first committee meeting. For example, at our Winter meeting, I did not have a Thursday committee meeting but still arrived on Wednesday night as I wanted to attend the Legal Affairs Committee meeting on Thursday. As I’m not on Legal Affairs, I paid for that night’s lodging out of my own pocket.

I would like to point out that there were no charter flights in 2025, no first class flights, and only four pre-authorized exceptions to fly business class due to documented medical conditions.

Looking at vendor payments especially for legal expenses they were significantly lower in 2025 than in 2024. Of course, the New York trial had been finished. In 2024, Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, was paid $32,273,602. In 2025, they were paid 6,885,582 for prior legal services and their engagement was ended. By contrast, the NRA’s other law firm, Baker Hostetler was paid zero in 2024 and $2,416,051 in 2025. They provide our board counsel and cover most of our outside, non-2A, litigation needs. The biggest vendor in 2024 was, of course, Brewer while the largest in 2025 was Fidelity Investments. The payments to Fidelity include both employee and employer contributions to the NRA’s 401(k) plan.

The total number of whistleblower reports were similar – 58 versus 57 – but varied distinctly. For 2025, while there were a total of 57 reports, only 48 actually related to the NRA. Of these, only 12% were substantiated as opposed to 52% from the previous year. Indeed, the great majority (63%) were unsubstantiated.

In addition to the reduction in travel costs, what makes me happiest is seeing that our auditors gave the NRA a clean audit for 2025. Aprio did special tests on 21 areas and found zero non-compliance. This contrasts with six instances of non-compliance in 2024. As our Chief Compliance Officer Matthew Boyden wrote about these results, “they reflect a culture of accountability that has taken root across the organization.” The NRA is digging ourselves out of the mess we put ourselves in but we are doing it the right way and without cutting corners.

The Annual Compliance report is embedded below.

2026 Annual Compliance Report Download

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NRA Annual Meeting Report, Part 1

April 22, 2026

by John Richardson 4 Comments

Over the coming days I will be doing a series of reports about the NRA Annual Meeting including the Board meeting and Meeting of Members. They will cover a number of topics. These topics will include the Elections Committee report, the Annual Compliance Report to Members, changes to the Executive Committee, and much more.

I am starting with the Elections Committee report which is embedded at the end of this post. Sadly, voting numbers were down again. Out of approximately 2.5 million ballots sent out, only a total of 59,781 were return for a voting turnout of a mere 2.43%. The total number of valid ballots was 56,850. This will mean that petition candidates will only need a total of 285 valid signatures to make the ballot.

One reason for the low turnout could have been that virtually all the candidates on the ballot were going to be elected. This was due to resignations of Board members which opened up a total of 10 slots in addition to the regular 25 3-year terms and the 76th Director. We may never know.

As I reported earlier in April when I gave out the draft election results, Isaac Demerest decided not to run for 76th Director which only left Lynn Gipson. Then Eb Wilkinson declined the seat he won. Thus, Regis Synan moved up to take a 3-year term, Jim Wallace moved up to take a 2-year term, and Isaac Demerest won a 1-year term as he had placed ahead of Lynn Gipson. As the Elections Committee report makes clear under Robert’s Rules of Order, Mr. Gipson was declared the winner by acclamation of the 76th Director seat.

All was well and good until Sunday afternoon.

We learned then that both longtime director Wayne Anthony Ross of Alaska and Lynn Gipson had passed away on Saturday, April 18th. My condolences to both the Gipson and Ross familes.

We took up the issue in Monday’s Board meeting regarding whether they would or could be replaced on the Board. It resolved around the meaning of Article VIII, Section 4 of the NRA Bylaws stating that the 76th Director “shall be chosen only from those persons who were nominated as candidates for election for Director in the mail ballot…” The debate was whether write-in candidates could be considered “nominated” within the meaning of this bylaw. It was ultimately decided that “nominated” only applied to those candidates who appeared on the ballot by a nomination from the Nominating Committee or by a nomination by petition. There were a number of arguments regarding this. One strong argument was that write-in’s had not been vetted to see if they were even eligible under the Bylaws unlike the other candidates.

Jeff Knox corrected me on the relevant section of the bylaws were in play. He said:

There was no question about write-ins being eligible to run for 76th. The question was on Article IV, Section 2, Bold Italic, filling vacancies occurring between regular elections: “…shall be filled by persons who ran and lost on the most recent mail ballot in rank order…” The question was whether write-ins “ran” on the “ballot.” They would have to be “otherwise qualified to serve,” but would receiving write-in votes be enough to consider them to have “run?”

By a vote of 27 yes to 33 no, it was decided as there remained no ~~nominated~~ candidates on the ballot those two positions will go unfilled. Thus, the 2026-27 Board of Directors will only number 74.

My vote was not to seat a write-in candidate and that vote had nothing to do with the candidates themselves. Indeed, I had urged voters to write-in Chuck Rowe’s name on their ballots as I thought he would make a great Director. Rather it went back to what I considered the letter and the spirit of the Bylaw itself.

One thing I might point out is if you are considering running for the Board of Directors now is the time to request a petition package from the NRA Office of the Secretary. As a reminder, potential petition candidates can now gather signatures electronically from eligible NRA voters.

The report of the Committee on Elections is below:

2026 NRA Election Report Download

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2026 NRA Meeting Of Members

April 18, 2026

by John Richardson

The NRA Meeting of Members will be tomorrow (Saturday, April 18th) at 10am in Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center. I would encourage everyone attending the NRA Annual Meeting to take some time and attend this meeting.

I won’t be introducing any resolutions this year but I do think there will be one concerning conflicts of interest. I will be interested to see it

While we are speaking of compliance, I would encourage every member attending to pick up the Annual Compliance Report to Members. There will be copies outside the meeting room. It is compiled by Chief Compliance Officer Matthew Boyden. The report discusses items including travel and entertainment expenses, contract negotiations and payments, related party transactions, whistleblower reports, and the independent audit. As a member of the Audit Committee, I have seen the draft version and it does contain a lot of good news that should please NRA members. Without going into detail until the final version is handed out tomorrow, the bottom line is the NRA has cleaned up its act.

The Annual Compliance Report to Members will be available soon on the NRA’s website under “Governance Information”. This is where other member-only information concerning finances, tax filings, bylaws, and board minutes can be found.

President Bill Bachenberg will be presenting a bylaw change to members that would reduce the size of the 20-member Executive Committee and reframing it as a governance committee. As the proposal now stands, the committee will consist of the three officers, the chairs of the Audit, Finance, Legal Affairs, and Members, and two at-large board members. The NRA leadership has heard member calls for reduction in the size of the Board. This reduction in size of the Executive Committee along with a potential proposal to gradually reduce the size of the Board will be part of President Bachenberg’s presentation as I understand it.

While there will be much more discussed at the Meeting of Members, I wanted to get these two highlights out there.

See you there!

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Final NRA Board Election Results

April 15, 2026

by John Richardson

As somewhat expected Eb Wilkinson declined his seat on the NRA Board of Directors. Why he even kept is name on the ballot is open to speculation. Thus, Regis Synan moved up to a 3-year term (really good!) and Jim Wallace to a 2-year term. Additionally, Isaac Demerest who declined to run for the 76th Director will now have a 1-year term.

Here are the final results that came out this morning from NRA Secretary John Frazer. One note, the vote count will not be released until the Elections Committee gives its report on Saturday at the Meeting of Members.

ELECTED FOR THREE-YEAR TERMS ENDING IN 2029

Leroy Sisco
Megan Hilbish
Amanda Suffecool
Ted Carter
Linda Walker
James D’Cruz
Kenneth Bowra
David Raney
James W. Porter II
Jacqueline Janes
Jay Wallace
William Bailey
Eric Mettauer
Bruce Widener
Rob Beckman
Mark Vaughan
Robert Mansell
Charles Brown
Charles Hiltunen III
Mark Robinson
Jerry Kraus
Amy Heath-Lovato
Randy Luth
Richard Fairburn
Regis Synan

ELECTED FOR TWO-YEAR TERMS ENDING IN 2028

Todd Figard
Deborah Lyman
Kyle Hupfer
Robert K. Brown
Steve Schreiner
Jim Wallace

ELECTED FOR ONE-YEAR TERMS ENDING IN 2027

Alex Carroll
Huey Laugesen
Todd Vandermyde
Isaac Demarest
Lynn Gipson (by acclamation to 76th Director seat)

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WNC Friends Of The NRA Event

April 12, 2026

by John Richardson 3 Comments

On Friday night, the Complementary Spouse and I attended the WNC Friends of the NRA event held in Asheville. This event has been held annually for the past 28 years and is a testament to the hard work of Tyrone Phillips and his committee.

This was our second year attending the event. The attendance was down a bit due to the rescheduling of the dinner from its traditional February time frame. This was done to make sure the monies raised did not go to the NRA Foundation but rather to the NRA Freedom Action Foundation. Still, there were well over 100 attendees.

Beside a very good steak dinner, the event featured games, raffles, and an auction. We played the table raffle and a couple of other games. We didn’t win anything this year but that was OK as we knew the money was going for many good causes. Last year, our table did win the table raffle and we each went home with Ruger RXM pistols.

The auction bidding was very spirited. One interesting feature was the ability to “bump” your winning bid by $100 for a chance to win a S&W 1854 .45-70 lever gun. Additionally, if you won the bid on a “key item”, you were in the running to win a safe with 3 additional firearms. What I found really sweet about the whole live auction was that the auctioneer allowed a nice young lady with Down’s Syndrome to announce “sold” every time. Without sounding maudlin, it was just heart warming to see.

Joe Puleo is the NRA Field Representative who helped run the event. Currently, he covers all of North Carolina and South Carolina. He and I had a nice conversation on how the Friends dinners are going. It seems like they are back on track to raise a good deal of the money that should be coming from the NRA Foundation but isn’t.

If you get a chance to attend one of these events in your area, please do. It helps support the 501c3 activities of the NRA at the national level such as training, education, women and youth events, hunter safety, and much more. Just as importantly, half the monies raised remain in the state. Attending this Western North Carolina event were youth from shooting and hunter safety groups in Henderson and Polk Counties which are supported by grant money raised at this event and other like events.

We, of course, will be attending again next year.