Attention outdoor writers: News from Bass Pro’s Media Day at the Range 2010

October 20, 2009 (Centreville, VA) –With the support of Bass Pro Shops and many manufacturers and organizations, the industry will be holding the 5th annual Media Day at the Range on Monday, January 18, 2010 being held at the Boulder City Pistol & Rifle Range in Boulder City, Nevada from 9 am to 4:00 pm.

We have some exciting news concerning Media Day 2010 that you surely do not want to miss. By registering and attending Media Day at the Range you will also have an opportunity to win a Blaser Rifle outfitted with a Zeiss Victory Scope valued at more than $4,000. Here is all you will need to do to win:

• Visit the Blaser and Zeiss exhibits to experience shooting the Blaser rifle and using the Zeiss Victory scope.

• Purchase a raffle ticket to enter – one chance $4 or three chances for $10. All proceeds going to Safari Club AWLS Youth Program. There is no limit to the number of tickets you can purchase.

• Drawing at 3:00 pm at the Blaser exhibit. You must be present to win

With nearly 60 manufacturers registered, the range is nearly sold out. The day will consist of visiting with a wide range of manufacturers both from the shooting and non-shooting community and you will also have an opportunity to interview company representatives about their new product line-up. Transportation will be provided both to and from the range.

This event will give you the opportunity to handle and shoot new products being introduced at SHOT Show from many of the industry’s leading manufacturers. This year the event will be benefiting the Safari Club AWLS Youth Program.

So if you have not already registered, please do so today at www.media-day.com. Please be sure you pass this information on to all individuals from your publication or broadcast property who may want to attend, we don’t want anyone to miss this event. On behalf of all the attending manufacturers we look forward to seeing you at the range.

Media Day is open to members of the media only and registered exhibitors. For additional information, contact Cory Cannon with Triple Curl at ccannon at triplecurl.com or Cathy Williams with CMG Marketing and Events at cathy at cmgmarketingandevents.com.

*****

Team Artemis readies for upcoming Campbell Outdoor Challenge in Illinois

Team Artemis, the all woman team comprised of Nancy Jo Adams and Marti Davis, are excited about the opportunity to try their skills in the Whitetail qualifying challenge at Campbell’s Illinois Whitetails in Carmi, Illinois, on October 24 through 30. The team is proudly sponsored by Bass Pro Shops/RedHead, Women’s Outdoor News, Up North Journal and several various gear sponsors. This is an exciting opportunity that will give them experience of filming hunts for broadcast quality footage.

The Campbell Outdoor Challenge gives teams comprised of a hunter and a camera person the opportunity to compete against other teams proving their ability to capture the hunt and harvest on camera effectively. Campbell Cameras specializes in equipping outdoor enthusiasts with the proper video and audio equipment to capture the thrill of the hunt and offers video cameras and accessories, audio equipment, camera mount systems, video lights and editing software to make the perfect combination to fit any camera person’s needs.

For Nancy Jo, this opportunity could not have presented itself at a better time. Nancy Jo was recently announced as the First Lady of Up North Journal. As field staff, Nancy Jo will be filming her hunts for the 2009-2010 season for UNJ’s Beyond the Wild and was researching cameras and equipment for that need. Up North Journal offers weekly podcasts and you will be able to listen to updates while Team Artemis is attending this challenge. You can find Nancy Jo’s blog link on the site and can read about the Team Artemis Campbell Outdoor Challenge experience as it unfolds.

Nancy Jo expressed that she likes the idea that Campbell Cameras can be a one-stop-shop to purchase everything that is necessary to film hunts in the field. She stated, “The Outdoor Filming Packages are perfect for someone like me who is new to the sport of filming hunts. I don’t have to worry about getting a camera and equipment that is virtually of no use to me as I would if buying at a big electronic store retailer. I can rest assured that Campbell Cameras is outfitting me with all the necessary items that I need for my intended purpose. ”

Marti Davis, RedHead Pro Field Staff member, is a very integral part of Team Artemis — bringing her experience of filming hunts in the past and her successful harvest record to the team. Marti stated, “Filming a hunt is something I have tried before with low-end equipment and low-end results. I look forward to filming Nancy Jo with Campbell Cameras’ broadcast quality equipment and getting some high-quality results.”

Listen to Nancy Jo and Marti in a podcast with Up North Journal (#131) here.

CambellCamerasAd

The WON walks away with a win

The WOMA’s own Barbara Baird has won an Excellence in Craft (EIC) Award from the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association (SEOPA).

Barbara won first place in the Outdoor Entrepreneur Project category for her groundbreaking website The Women’s Outdoor News (The WON), of which she is the publisher. SEOPA’s Outdoor Entrepreneur EIC Award is sponsored by Liberty Press.

“It’s our enthusiastic readers, advertisers and contributors, as well as our indispensable Associate Editor Paige Eissinger, who make The WON what it is,” said Barbara.

SEOPA members gathered recently in Punta Gorda, Florida for their 45th Annual Fall Conference. Founded in 1964, SEOPA is a professional organization of outdoor writers, photographers, broadcasters, speakers and corporate partners in 14 Southeastern states.

Barbara is an all-around outdoorswoman and NRA-certified handgun instructor whose writing has appeared in America’s First Freedom, Fly Fisherman and many other publications and websites. She and her husband Jason live in central Missouri and have four grown children.

Jane Keller – Member of The WOMA

Jane Keller, a South Dakota farm girl, embraces the outdoors wholeheartedly. From childhood, her parents’ encouragement and conservation knowledge allowed Keller to see and enjoy nature differently. The passion from her youth still thrives today. Keller is the founder of Team Huntress. Team Huntress creates an atmosphere where women experience firsthand the true exhilaration shooting a gun or firing an arrow from a bow. More so, Team Huntress is about bringing women together to learn, share, and embrace a common passion–the outdoors.

Keller coordinates events and guides hunts at Pheasant Phun/OJ Bar Ranch. Through her programs at the ranch, Keller has shared her outdoor knowledge with many hunters, both men and women.

Read more

I might be a redneck!

One of my favorite comedic routines is that of Jeff Foxworthy who describes behavior that might classify one as a “redneck.” He mentions scenarios such as drinking beer and zapping bugs while sitting on the orange sofa on the front porch, graduating from the third grade on the same day as your daughter, and your richest relative buying a new house that you have to take the wheels off as indicative of your cultural status.

Since moving from San Juan Capistrano to Huson, Montana, I still find Foxwothy’s jokes funny—but now it’s for a different reason that I laugh: I think I have become one, a recent addition to the redneck population.

I’ve befriended a woman with a trashy trailer out front and a man who posts a sign over his mailbox that reads “Bill’s Hill and Used Car Lot.” I see Bill at church on Sunday as he distributes the bulletin and I’ve offered to come help paint the lawn town that he built from used fire station wood. It is often towed to his cabin by 9-Mile Towing, our local rescue one-man operation, that driver who has been reported to anguish aloud to any passenger, “It’s hard to decide whether to go first to the folks who need me or the ones who I can overcharge”—this spoken right before breaking into song, “The tow truck man, the tow truck man…”

I’ve learned a great deal of pertinent information from my redneck companions: It’s called a pick-up or a truck, but never a pick-up truck. Don’t say you’ve come from Southern California. Never hang antlers on the wall unless you shot what was under them.

Best of all is one Jeff Foxworthy doesn’t know yet—the latest evidence to support his hypothesis: the redneck Easter egg hunt. It comes from a local judge, a prominent and acutely intelligent gentleman who lives just outside of Missoula in Lolo—an “end of the roader,” as he likes to refer to us both, since I also reside at the end of a dirt road. Doug has lived here forever and it’s forever he hopes to stay, right where he is, where at the end of the long day in court, he can retreat with his dogs to what he calls his “really more comfortable status of redneck.”

Doug wants me to tell my California readers about the “redneck Easter Egg Hunt.” His wife, Alane, colorfully dyes five dozen raw eggs, after which they carefully arrange them on tree branches and stumps. When all the adult children arrive (grandkids must reach a certain age before they are released from indoors to participate), they take turns with a .22 rifle to see who can nail what.

“They literally explode!” boasts Doug as he mimics eggshells bursting in air. This is a lot more interesting than those questionable hard-boiled treasures we were supposed to gather up in baskets and what? Actually eat?

Where I live now, Peaches plays the organ at the Sunday church service. Ed who lives down the frontage road tells stories of his family ranch that goes back three generations—stories of the Montana wilderness and the way they survived in the old days. He wears a cowboy hat, tips it whenever a lady is present, and drives up to my door in his pick-up after an honest day’s field labor to bring some news.

Neighbors know neighbors—not even two degrees of separation here. They sit on those dilapidated front porch chairs that in Orange County would have landed in the city dump eons ago, and talk family, food, and good fortune. They stay for supper—heck, they call it supper! They are on the road helping someone out of a ditch or repairing a driveway when the culvert can’t contain the creek (I mean “crik”) and it flows over.

Life is simple, money isn’t spent: it’s earned or turned with the next season’s crop or cattle. Ragged American flags unfurl outside the house every morning and rest folded every evening. Whenever a local solider gives his life for our country, they fly half-mast. And at the end of the day, there’s sippin’ at sunset, a hot bath, some laughs on the front porch with Stella’s gin-soaked raisin pie (cures arthritis, so she claims) and bed. Tomorrow they’ll do it all over again, and I’ll be alongside ‘em, listenin’ for the crik now that the runoff’s ripe.

If this is redneck, then so is that sign I just nailed to a tree at the end of my rocky driveway that reads: Trespassers will be shot; survivors will be shot again. Last week I mounted the inflatable plastic elk head on my garage wall, right across from the signing trout.

Mr. Foxworthy, I’m already there.

~Kathleen Clary Miller

Effect an affect

The words affect and effect often cause confusion, and it’s easy to understand why. Not only are they homonyms (words that sound the same but have different meanings) but they can be either nouns or verbs, depending on the context and the way they’re used. Pretty frustrating. Let’s impose some method on this madness.

Here’s the basic rule: The correct choice of affect or effect depends on whether the word is a noun or a verb. So far so good. Unfortunately, there are exceptions. (Aren’t there always?)

1. Most of the time, when the word is a noun, you want effect.

Example: Did the medication have any effect?

That movie had amazing special effects.

2. Most of the time, when the word is a verb, you want affect (meaning to influence, alter or change).

Example: That situation does not affect me.

Apply the skin cream to the affected area.

The bad news is that there are exceptions to the rules: Affect can sometimes be a noun, and effect can sometimes be a verb. The good news is that these exceptions are relatively rare, at least in everyday usage.

Confronted with this choice, you have to figure out not only whether it’s a noun or a verb, but also what it means in the present context.

Exception number one is affect as a noun, often used in a medical context (told you they were rare). If you’re sure it’s a noun, but the context refers to someone’s overall appearance, bearing or demeanor, spell it with an “a.” In speaking, this is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable (AF-fect).

Example: The psychiatrist said the patient had a depressed affect.

Exception number two is somewhat more common, but still it’s rarely seen nowadays except in very formal writing. If you’re sure it’s a verb, but the word means to bring about, to create, or to bring into being (instead of to influence, alter or change) spell it with an “e.”

Example: Some skeptics doubt that monetary policy will effect a drop in unemployment.

And here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is a danger, and the Iranian regime’s foreign policy—which has involved support for militias and terrorist groups—make it a destabilizing force in the region.

4. Targets of this type were developed many years ago for the U.S. Army. While bulky at the time, the miniaturized electronic components of today make it possible to greatly reduce this mechanism in size.

3. The Nielsen report said upscale retailers should consider stocking practical items because affluent households may forego jewelry and designer bags for the likes of generators, fireplace accessories, kitchen gadgets and family games.

2. In January 2005, via a simulcast meeting of the outdoor media attending the SHOT Show and SCI Convention, elected a panel of 10 outdoor journalists to serve as a steering committee to determine the viability of a communications organization focused wholly on the traditional outdoor sports.

1. “Structure” is part of the typography of a lake, reservoir or river, and includes drop-offs, ledges and humps.

Answers in next post.

And here are the answers to last week’s funnies.

5. While training in miserable weather (be it cold, snow, rain, or heat) can no doubt be useful, certainly such climactic conditions do not make it easier to master the skills needed.

Wrong word. Climactic is the adjectival form of the noun climax. Writing about the weather, this author wants climatic, the adjectival form of climate.

4. The raid by Israeli forces at Entebbe, Uganda, in July 1976 using silenced 9mm Ingram M10s and the West German rescue of kidnapped passengers at Mogadishu in the Sudan, where silenced Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm SMGs were used, are just two examples of the usefulness of sound suppressors.

Oops. Mogadishu is the capital city of Somalia; it’s not in Sudan.

3. Those who now live in cities are often disconnected from the land. Their only brush with wildlife occurs on the National Graphic Channel or Animal Plant.

Um, that would be National Geographic Channel and Animal Planet.

2. Once having tasted the climatic pleasure of this elicit activity, he found ways to repeat it.

Two wrong words. The first is the flipside of number 5; in this case, it should be climactic. In the second case, elicit is a verb, meaning to draw out or call forth, as in elicit a response. Here you want the adjective illicit, meaning forbidden or illegal.

1. Enemies are forced into shaky alliances. And when the woman Fang loves is accused of betraying her people, her only hope is that Fang believes in her. Yet in order to save her, Fang must break the law of his people and the faith of his brothers. That breech could very well spell the end of both their races and change their world forever. The war is on and time is running out . . .

Wrong word. The breech is the part of a gun at the rear end of the bore, where the cartridge is loaded. The correct word here is breach, synonymous with break.

Register for media pass at SHOT Show as a WOMA member

For members of THE WOMA who plan to attend SHOT Show 2010 from January 19-22 in Las Vegas, you have been invited by the host, National Shooting Sports Foundation, to register as media members. This means you are eligible to carry a camera on the floor of the show. In order to attend this annual outdoor “monster” event free of charge, you will need to apply online for your badge and you will need your WOMA membership card.

Go to www.shotshow.org and directly on the left side of the homepage where it reads Media, click on it and you will go to a media page where you may click on guidelines. Apply online or download an application. If you have any questions please contact Bettyjane Swann, Director of Member Services, at bswann@nssf.org, or call 203-426-1320.

Sheila Brey – Member of The WOMA

Sheila is the first woman to achieve a Master rating in the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA). She loves sporting clays and is an instructor for Babes With Bullets Ladies Action Shooting Camps.

Excuse me, but your modifier is dangling Part Deux

Are we having fun yet?

Readers of my recent posts about editing are probably getting the idea that editors can’t take anything for granted. That’s true–we can’t. Editing is detail-oriented, painstaking work. However, if you love to read, it can also be immensely rewarding.

In many ways it’s more art than science, which is what makes it so much fun.

Each of the sentences below contains at least one error. See how many you can spot.

5. While training in miserable weather (be it cold, snow, rain, or heat) can no doubt be useful, certainly such climactic conditions do not make it easier to master the skills needed.

4. The raid by Israeli forces at Entebbe, Uganda, in July 1976 using silenced 9mm Ingram M10s and the West German rescue of kidnapped passengers at Mogadishu in the Sudan, where silenced Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm SMGs were used, are just two examples of the usefulness of sound suppressors.

3. Those who now live in cities are often disconnected from the land. Their only brush with wildlife occurs on the National Graphic Channel or Animal Plant.

2. Once having tasted the climatic pleasure of this elicit activity, he found ways to repeat it.

1. Enemies are forced into shaky alliances. And when the woman Fang loves is accused of betraying her people, her only hope is that Fang believes in her. Yet in order to save her, Fang must break the law of his people and the faith of his brothers. That breech could very well spell the end of both their races and change their world forever. The war is on and time is running out . . .

Answers in next post.

Here are the answers from last week’s collection of misfires:

5. To be considered insane in New York State, Shawcross’s team had to show quite specifically that at the time of the various offenses—every single one—he suffered from a mental defect such that either he did not know what he was doing or could not appreciate that it was wrong.

Here, “considered insane” is a dangling modifier. It wasn’t the team of defense lawyers who were considered insane, but Shawcross. Rewritten thus: For Shawcross to be considered insane in New York State, his defense team had to show that . . . (Arthur Shawcross, 1945-2008, was a notorious serial killer. His story is gruesome and not for the faint of heart.)

4. Driving toward the park boundary from the center of Tuolumne Meadows, 13,053-foot Mount Dana dominates the horizon to the east.

(Seems unlikely the mountain does a lot of driving.) Here, “driving” is a dangling modifier. Rewritten thus: As you drive toward the park boundary from the center of . . .

3. I fired my .375 Merkel double, and the buffalo took off downhill, but made it only about 75 yards before he dropped dead. The PH told me that the hit was in the juggler.

Wrong word. A juggler is a person who juggles balls, or a busy life. The correct word is “jugular,” the name for two veins in the neck that return blood from the brain to the heart.

2. Damian, the tracker, finally spotted two lone stallions.

This is an oxymoron (two words that can’t go together because each negates the other). By definition, a lone stallion is . . . alone, the only one present—so there can’t be two. The easiest fix is to delete the word “lone.”

1. Frequently a fish would leap fully out and take the fly in his decent, a thrilling site and one of the reasons the big spiders make such exciting fishing.

Wrong words. The first should be “descent” and the second should be “sight.” A site is a place or a location. A sight is something seen.

If you have a sentence that contains an editing error, please share it.

Bill

How’s your Mental Terrorism working out?

Judging yourself and others is good old Mental Terrorism.  Don’t let  negativity of whatever drag you down. It is your personal responsibility to manage how you think.

My example: What taxi rides to and from the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco and the airport taught me.

To the hotel:

1. People driving a cab who can’t speak English (my native tongue) should be admired. They are working hard to support their families. I could never do the same in their country.

2. When I feel anger hitting me right between the eyes, I must stop and realize it is my frames of reference and judgment getting in the way of my emotions.

3. Sir Francis Drake and the Westin St. Francis sound the same, especially if English is not your first language, and luckily are very close in proximity.

Back to the airport:
4. People from Afghanistan have children who are amazed that they don’t wake up in the morning to gunfire and the sounds of bombs exploding.

5. They don’t understand why people in the US can’t find jobs. Even the educated will drive a taxi to support their family.

6. They know that if the US doesn’t send in troops, the Taliban will be back with a vengeance.

Take a step back from all you have. Savor your success, and enjoy your stuff. Personally I am thankful for all the freedoms I have, warts and all. I went to war many years ago with Mental Terrorism.

I plan to really look at the personal responsibility I take in my life and do more! How about you?

Marsha

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