BROKEN BOW—After 59 years the annual Nebraska One Box Pheasant Hunt is as strong as ever! Seven different teams will gather this week for a variety of shooting competitions, hunts, cocktail parties, social events, and banquets.
Chairpersons Chris and Kassi Henderson have been with the One Box Board for the last four years and said they could not put the weekend together without the support of the community.
Thursday evening will consist of an appreciation party for landowners and teams will draw for guides, dog handlers, and scorekeepers. The competition heats up on Friday with trap shoot and sporting clays at the Nebraska One Box Gun Club five miles southwest of Broken Bow.
Chris Henderson said the shooting range is open to the public year round and that the entire board is grateful for the facility.
“We’re really lucky to have that facility out there [Nebraska One Box Gun Club]. It’s been around for a while, and like you said, it’s something you kind of take for granted,” Chris Henderson said.
With a myriad of donors from Custer County and surrounding areas, Kassi Henderson is thankful for the selection of raffle prizes and auction items. The Ladies Sip N’ Paint event in on Friday afternoon and a sold-out crowd will gather on Saturday to welcome inspirational speaker and championship barrel racer Amberley Snyder. Kassi told KCNI/KBBN that the doors will open at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the One Box Convention Center.
“We’ve never sold out on our Saturday event and we have this year!” Kassi Henderson said.
A driving force behind all of the hunting and social events is the dedication of Nebraska One Box in giving back to the community in the forms of habitat projects and youth scholarships.
According to the One Box website, more than $400,000 has been awarded since 1981 to area high school seniors seeking a post-secondary degree with special consideration toward individuals going into wildlife/range/forestry management, veterinary medicine, or education. The Hendersons said 15 scholarships were given out this past year to local youth. Chris Henderson invites students all over the county and beyond to consider applying.
“Anybody is more than welcome, we’d love to help them out,” Chris Henderson said.
Since the beginning of the habitat program in 2003, the committee has been involved in establishing more than 3,000 acres of habitat restoration in Custer County and surrounding areas.
Shooters from all over Nebraska and states such as Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, and Texas will hunt on Saturday morning with just 25 shells and enjoy the friendships, the fun, and maybe also the bragging rights.
“If you talk to a lot of the past shooters they come for the hunt, it’s great. But they come more to hang out with everybody and see people they haven’t seen for a year. It’s about the friendships and relationships that they’ve made here with everybody not just the board, even the community,” Chris Henderson said.
