MERLE MONAHAN / CONTRIBUTING WRITER
merlemonah@aol.com

IVOR—Nearly 200 people attended the Third Annual Sportsman’s Gun Bash sponsored by the Ivor Volunteer Fire Department on Saturday, making it the department’s best-attended fundraiser in several years.

“We haven’t determined how much money we raised at this point, though,” said President Frank Britt. “It takes a while because there are so many facets to consider.”

The department was very pleased with the number of supporters who turned out, however.

“We couldn’t do this without them,” he said.

The bash is basically a raffle where ticket holders have a chance to win a new firearm, or some other item of hunting equipment. Ivor firemen sold 500 tickets at $40 each, giving each ticket holder a chance to win one of 20 prizes.

In addition, there were 40 other prizes to be won by in-house ticket holders. This included door prizes and 50-50 raffle.

Brian Grasser, chairman of the gun bash committee, said winners of the larger prizes would have to pick up their winnings at the stores from which they were purchased. When doing so, firearms winners would have to go through the same background checks as any other customer, he added.

Grasser emphasized that the fire department follows all the rules.

“The guns won here are for hunting only. We will never have any sort of assault weapon,” he said.

Grasser, who was instrumental in organizing the event, said the department is grateful to all the businesses that donated prizes.

“We had stores from dozens of areas help this year, including Wakefield, Windsor, Ivor, Franklin, Stony Creek, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk and Greensboro, N.C.

“We could not put this show on without their help,” he continued. “Some of the prizes were quite expensive” he added, “like a gas grill, a chain saw, pressure washer, CB radios and duck decoys, to name a few.”

Along with the gun bash inside, firemen borrowed a fire safety trailer from the Franklin Fire Department where lectures on hunting and fire safety were given to the youngsters during the afternoon.

An added feature this year was the presentation of plaques to three honored guests, long-time Ivor firemen, H. Massey Joyner (more than 50 years), Charles Stallard (nearly 50 years) and Franklin Fire Chief Vince Holt. Starting with Joyner the first year, Stallard and then Holt, the firemen were the on hand annually year to draw the winning tickets for the new shotguns.

The name of the grand prizewinner, who won a Benelli Black Eagle 2, 12-gauge shotgun, was not available.