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Quail Forever’s Third Annual No Child Left Indoors National Awards
Awards honor chapter efforts in fostering youth involvement in the outdoors…

Pheasants Forever & Quail Forever

Saint Paul, Minn. - -(AmmoLand.com)- Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever have honored three local chapters for their efforts to introduce youth to the outdoors and create the next generation of hunters and conservationists.

Recipients of the third annual No Child Left Indoors® National Awards include the Mahaska County (Iowa) Pheasants Forever chapter, the Illinois Pioneer Pheasants Forever chapter and the Great River Area (Illinois/Iowa) Quail Forever chapter.

Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s No Child Left Indoors initiative is the organization’s national effort to engage youngsters in outdoor activities such as hunting, fishing and camping. The No Child Left Indoors® National Awards recognize chapters for their youth habitat projects, youth and family community events and youth outdoor education programs.

“These chapters have shown the ultimate commitment to promoting youth activities and getting kids involved in the outdoors,” said Cheryl Riley, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s Vice President of Education and Outreach.

Great River Area Quail Forever Chapter
This chapter does youth work on both sides of the Mississippi River – in Illinois and Iowa. From presentations to high school kids, an FFA banquet, hunter safety programs and youth fishing tournaments, Great River Area Quail Forever chapter members engaged youth and talked about habitat and the needs of quail. The chapter also held its first mentored youth hunt last September.

Mahaska County Pheasants Forever Chapter
Each spring, the Mahaska County Pheasants Forever chapter sponsors an outdoor day that includes every 5th grade student in the county, 350-plus students. In the fall, the chapter hosts a field day which over 200 youth attend and everyone goes home with a Pheasants Forever Ringnecks (youth) membership. The chapter also sponsors an Iowa Youth Hunter Education Challenge Team as well as a scholastic shooting team that had 60 participants this past year. Last year, chapter expenditures on youth programs topped $16,000.

The Mahaska County Pheasants Forever chapter’s youth coordinator is Mahaska High School student Brooks VanDerBeek. Brooks’ dad, Jeff, is president of the chapter. Brooks serves on Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s National Youth Leadership Council and recently helped form the first-ever high school student Pheasants Forever chapter in the country, the Oskaloosa Pioneering Ringnecks. Brooks’ efforts have earned him the Izaak Walton Iowa Youth Conservationist of the Year award, and he was named a “Hero of Conservation” in the current issue of Field and Stream magazine.

Illinois Pioneer Pheasants Forever Chapter
The Illinois Pioneer Pheasants Forever chapter held 11 events in 2009 as part of its “Young Guns” program, involving members, women, FFA, scouts and families in trap and skeet shoots, a fishing derby, a hunter safety course, a rifle shoot and a youth mentor hunt. In 2009, the Illinois Pioneer chapter spent approximately $31,000 on youth programs. There are 290 youth members in “Young Guns” and this year they will be working on an 80-acre habitat restoration project. The chapter credits the “Young Guns” program in making its annual fundraising banquet last spring the largest in its 25-year history. Original “Young Guns” Ben Magers and Kirstin Blackford helped create and serve on the newly formed Illinois Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever State Youth Leadership Council, and each was recognized as a 2009 Environmental Hero by the Illinois Governor.

For more about Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s No Child Left Indoors® initiative, contact Cheryl Riley at criley@pheasantsforever.org and 651.209.4975.

Pheasants Forever and its quail division, Quail Forever, is a non-profit conservation organization is dedicated to the conservation of pheasants, quail and other wildlife through habitat improvements, public awareness, education and land management policies and programs. Pheasants Forever has more than 120,000 members in 700 local chapters across the United States and Canada.

For additional information please visit www.PheasantsForever.org and www.QuailForever.org

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67 New Youths Trophies in Boone and Crockett Records

67 successful youths will be recognized at the Club’s 27th Big Game Awards, June 24-26, 2010, at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nev.

Boone and Crockett Club

MISSOULA, Mont – -(AmmoLand.com)- Young hunters age 16 and under have taken 67 Boone and Crockett qualifying trophies over the past three years.

Each will be listed in the triennial Boone and Crockett Club 27th Big Game Awards book due out later this year. Included among the youth trophies are a massive Alaska brown bear and the largest non-typical mule deer recorded in 36 years, both of which are Top 5 specimens in their respective categories for the awards period.

All 67 successful youths will be recognized at the Club’s 27th Big Game Awards, June 24-26, 2010, at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nev.

The event is a celebration of conservation successes featuring a free public exhibition of world-class antlers, horns and mounted specimens from across North America. Hunters who have taken Top 5 specimens in 36 categories of native North American big game during the past three years are invited to participate in the exhibit, alongside the youths.

“At this year’s ceremony, for the first time ever, we’re honoring young hunters who’ve taken a Boone and Crockett-class trophy during the past three years,” said Eldon Buckner, chairman of the Club’s Records of North American Big Game Committee. “It’s gratifying to see youths, both boys and girls, broadly represented across big game categories.”

The 67 trophies by hunters 16 and under include:

• Alaska brown bear—2 entries (minimum score 26, top score 29-1/16)
• Bighorn sheep—3 entries (minimum score 175, top score 190)
• Black bear—8 entries (minimum score 20, top score 21-9/16)
• Columbia blacktail deer, typical—2 entries (minimum score 125, top score 135-6/8)
• Cougar—3 entries (minimum score 14-8/16, top score 15-8/16)
• Musk ox—2 entries (minimum score 105, top score 110)
• Pronghorn—5 entries (minimum score 80, top score 88)
• Rocky Mountain goat—3 entries (minimum score 47, top score 53)
• Roosevelt’s elk—2 entries (minimum score 275, top score 326-7/8)
• Mule deer, non-typical—1 entry (minimum score 215, top score 242-4/8)
• Mule deer, typical—4 entries (minimum score 180, top score 191-4/8)
• Whitetail deer, non-typical—15 entries (minimum score 185, top score 240-5/8)
• Whitetail deer, typical—17 entries (minimum score 160, top score 174-4/8)

Young hunters claimed 2.2 percent of all the trophies entered into Boone and Crockett records during the Club’s 27th awards period.

“We’ve accepted almost 5,000 total trophy entries between Jan. 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2009, which is four times the number we received 30 years ago. Clearly, wild, free-ranging, trophy class animals are more plentiful today than ever. That’s a tribute to those wildlife managers and sportsmen—including the young hunters—who participate in that management,” added Buckner.

The Boone and Crockett system of scoring big game trophies originated in 1902 as means of recording details on species thought to be disappearing because of rampant habitat loss and unregulated harvest. Science-based conservation efforts led and funded by license-buying hunters brought those species from vanishing to flourishing.

Scoring records remain a classic gauge of habitat and management programs. In addition to its prestigious history and tradition, the Boone and Crockett Club’s scoring system is strongly associated with the highest tenets of fair chase and hunting ethics.

Along with celebrating conservation and hunting, the Club’s 27th Big Game Awards is also a fundraiser for the Club’s mission programs. Registered attendees also can enjoy raffles, an auction featuring hunts in top trophy regions across the continent and the 27th Awards Banquet and ceremony on June 26.

InterMedia Outdoors, which owns Sportsman Channel and several publications including Petersen’s Hunting, is the Boone and Crockett Club’s media partner for the event.

For registration and more event information, visit www.biggameawards.com.

About the Boone and Crockett Club
Founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887, the Boone and Crockett Club promotes guardianship and visionary management of big game and associated wildlife in North America. The Club maintains the highest standards of fair-chase sportsmanship and habitat stewardship. Member accomplishments include enlarging and protecting Yellowstone and establishing Glacier and Denali national parks, founding the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and National Wildlife Refuge System, fostering the Pittman-Robertson and Lacey Acts, creating the Federal Duck Stamp program, and developing the cornerstones of modern game laws. The Boone and Crockett Club is headquartered in Missoula, Mont. For details, visit www.boone-crockett.org.

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