Pastor Dan Lamb of the Hillsboro Bible Baptist Church described the 21st annual Sportsman’s Night Out as “all about our community and having a great time with family and the outdoors.”
This year’s edition of Sportsman’s Night Out is Saturday, Jan. 26 at Bible Baptist Church, less than one mile east of Hillsboro on SR 124.
“I’m an outdoorsman and I love to hunt,” Lamb told The Times-Gazette. “We started out with something like 25 men back then, and it’s just grown every year after that.”
Lamb invited everyone to attend the free annual event, which will officially get underway next Saturday at 11 a.m. with official scoring of deer until 3:30 p.m., outdoor clinics for hunters and families alike from 2 to 5:30 p.m., and for the 6 p.m. evening session, the guest speaker will be Gene Wolfenbarger, founding pastor of Joshua Baptist Church in Joshua, Texas.
“Dr. Wolfenbarger is real familiar with sportsman and the outdoors,” Lamb said. “In his spare time he breeds and trains coon dogs and is an accomplished hunter.”
He encouraged everyone attending Sportsman’s Night Out to bring their favorite wildlife mount for display, and said there will be prize drawings and scoring for mounts as well.He said that last year a total of 70 mounts were scored, and 50 of them ended up in the record books.
“There will be a lot of door prizes and a gift for every kid that comes,” Lamb said. “We have something like $12,000 to $15,000 worth of prizes that will be given away, everything from guns to hunting and outdoor gear to all expenses paid fishing trips to Canada.”
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife will be there as well, and Lamb said every child will receive a duck call which can be assembled and later taken home.
ODNR is also bringing to the event its shooting caravan, allowing children to hone their marksmanship skills by shooting BB guns at moving targets.
The annual church event is designed not only for the whole family, but for the ladies, too, Lamb said, adding that there will be many craft items given away in addition to several break-out sessions that will be of particular interest to women.
One of the most popular things is the giveaway of five all-expenses paid fishing trips to the Canada.
“It’s in Red Lake, Canada, near Eagle Falls, about 1,300 miles to the north,” he said. “It’s an all-expenses paid trip to there and back, and the only thing the guys are responsible for is buying their fishing license, which is a very minimal cost, and believe me they’ll have fun hooking those giant northern pike.”
The event has grown to the second largest of its kind in the state of Ohio, Lamb said. He expects more than 1,300 people throughout the day with more than 1,000 expected to be in attendance for the Saturday evening session.
“It really is a celebration of the sportsman and outdoors experience,” he said. “What we want to do is help these men and their families experience what Jesus spoke of in John’s gospel: that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
For more information on this years’ Sportsman’s Night Out, call the Hillsboro Bible Baptist Church at 937-393-2911 or go online at HillsboroBibleBaptist.com.
Reach Tim Colliver at 937-402-2571.
