NCWF Affiliate of the Year

<100 members

Sandhills Rod & Gun Club

The Sandhills Rod & Gun Club was founded in 1955, back when cars had tail fins and the Richmond County taxes on 253 acres of hardwoods and fields came to a whopping $22.57 cents per year. This club of 75 members is the second-oldest civic club in historic Ellerbe, North Carolina. But in 2007, the Sandhills Rod & Gun Club proved that it is a club with firm sense of the future, as well as the past. When the NC Wildlife Resources Commission was attempting to purchase nearly 1,700 acres of wildlands on the Pee Dee River, the Commission was having difficulty with the transaction, given its recent purchase of other lands elsewhere in the state. The Sandhills Rod & Gun Club teamed up with the local Ducks Unlimited Chapter and the Sandhills Natural History Society to organize local support and secure grant funding for the purchase. When the Blewett Falls Hydro Power station on the Pee Dee River was up for relicensing, the Sandhills Rod & Club provided input on behalf of river users—and river wildlife—to ensure that the future of the Pee Dee River wasn’t compromised. The club has adopted roads under DOT’s highway adoption program, taught hunter safety courses, and traveled to Charlotte to speak against the siting of the OLF in the refuge-rich region around Plymouth. It’s been a year of unselfish, forward-thinking conservation activism for the Sandhills Rod & Gun Club. Which has been business as usual for more than half-a-century. The Sandhills Rod & Gun Club is the NC Wildlife Federation Affiliate of the Year for affiliates with less than 100 members.