12/24/2024
Saturday December 21, 2024 was our 5th Annual Adysen Lowery Memorial Youth Pheasant hunt sponsored and hosted by Spoon River NAVHDA. Previously scheduled on December 14, this hunt was moved to December 21st due to weather. We had to make some adjustments but it all worked out ok. We had the event at Gobblers K**b Hunting Preserve In Canton, IL. Birds this year were donated from Illinois DNR, thank you Clay Yantis. We had lots of food and prizes for the kids, all from our generous donors. The day started with breakfast and a" Why we are here" presentation. Shae Birkey then provided us with a wonderful conservation presentation, thank you Shae. After that we split the groups to Wing Shooting and Dog training. Caren Mansfield donated her expertise again this year for the kids to help brush up on safety and wing shooting, thank you so much Caren. Once the kids were done we paired them up with guides for the pheasant hunt. Thank you to the guides Randy Ashman, Kyle Fuess, Kevin Wolfer and Jared Bontemps. The kids shot amazing this year bringing back most of the birds. After the hunt we had lunch and gave away prizes. We gave away a multispecies fishing trip donated by Moonpie Outdoors, thanks to Steve McClone for the donation. We also gave away a .22 Rifle donated by Rick Schulte with Schulte's Conceal and Carry, thank you Rick. All kids went home with something, prizes ranged from knives, fishing poles, tackle boxes, Electronic Hearing protection and much much more. I also want to give a shout out to our two major contributors this year The Sun Room Tanning, thank you Paul Walker and Chuck's Heating and Cooling, thank you Chuck Mccullough. We had many other donors this year and I thank you each, it takes a lot to put on this event and you all helped us make it happen. There are not many if any experiences like what we make happen for these 13 lucky kids that want to learn about conservation, safety, dog training shooting and upland hunting. I tagged who I could, please feel free to share the post, we will be preparing and for next year and collecting donations so if you would like to donate to help us make the event better please contact me. Thank you to all that helped make this event successful, Adysen would have loved the event, it was everything she was about and I am sure she was smiling from ear to ear all day.
