Special Recognition for Ray “Take A Kid Shooting” Campbell
This year’s Friends of NRA Dinner held on August 12th was another huge success, in no small part thanks to the amazing level of unwavering support from the members of Buccaneer Gun Club. We have a great team of over 20 volunteers, many of whom are BGC members, who work behind the scenes, but there is one man who has been the face of this event for over 20 years, and who works tirelessly for the better part of 4 months every year to make Wilmington the top performing chapter in the entire southeast. That man is Ray Campbell.
Ray attended his first Friends of NRA fundraising event in 1994 and has not missed a dinner since. He has served as the Chairman of the local FNRA chapter for nearly 2 decades and sits on the NC NRA Foundation Grant Committee that oversees distribution of all the funds raised in our area.
Since he stepped up to lead the Wilmington chapter, we have seen an exponential growth in the size of our events. Ray’s first dinner consisted of around 30 guests. By 2010, that number had grown to over 300, and for the past 7 years, Ray has personally done the work to make sure our venue is at capacity with over 500 guests and that we set the standard in fundraising for the entire southeastern U.S.
Anyone who knows Ray knows his passion lies in helping kids learn safe firearms handling. He never misses a chance to Take A Kid Shooting or make it possible for someone else take them. As an NRA Instructor and Range Safety Officer, he has led Buccaneer Gun Club in sponsoring countless Youth Pistol, Rifle and Skeet clinics over the years, and supported the Boy Scouts and other local youth training fund raisers. A tireless leader by example, over his lifetime Ray has volunteered untold hours as a leader and ambassador for Buccaneer Gun Club and volunteered over 10,000 hours on behalf of the Friends of NRA Foundation and other shooting sports organizations in North Carolina.
The Board of Buccaneer Gun Club also wanted to recognize what Ray means to our club, and they voted unanimously to pass an official BGC Resolution naming the last Saturday in June each year as “Ray Campbell’s Take-A-Kid Shooting Day” at Buccaneer. Each year the club has agreed to sponsor a youth shooting event on that day, and host a cookout for the kids.
Club members J.R. Triggs of Jim’s Pawn and Gun and Tami Hahn also donated 4000 rounds of .22 LR and .20 gauge shotgun ammo for the future events, so that anytime Ray wants to take a kid shooting, he has some extra ammo waiting for him, as a reminder of our deepest gratitude to him for everything he has done for Buccaneer Gun Club and the shooting sports community of Southeastern NC. …
