The Youth Hunters Education Challenge (YHEC), which is sponsored by the National Rifle Association, is designed to take up where the hunter's education programs leave off and provide a way in which we can encourage young people to take up the shooting sports and become more responsible hunters.
YHEC revolves around a grassroots effort of dedicated volunteers, throughout the country, who give their time to educating and training young people. Locally, our program consists of practice sessions held on Sunday afternoons where any boy or girl, in the area, can come out and learn to shoot, gain knowledge in wildlife conservation, and aquire outdoor skills. We will often get kids who would, otherwise, never get an opportunity to learn to shoot or experience the outdoors. Our program is free to these kids and the cost of the program is paid for by our Federation of Sportsmans Clubs.
When our training sessions are complete, we select our teams to participate in the state challenge which is a three day event sponsored by the Ohio Wildlife Federation in cooperation with the Ohio Division of Wildlife. After participating in this event, the kids are then elligible to compete in the National Challenge sponsored by the NRA. Last year this was held in July at Leesburg, Va. This year it is to be held at the Whittington Center in New Mexico on July 28.
Last year there were over 300 kids from all over the country who participated in the National Challenge.
I believe this is the best program, today, which will secure our 2nd Amendment rights in the future and provide a realistic viewpoint on hunting to our youth. The youth of today will be the decision makers of tomorrow, so this program deserves the support of the shooting community.
For more information on YHEC, check out:
http://www.nra.org/hunter-svcs/yhec.html
http://www.nra.org/pub/hunting/96-01-24_youth_hunter_education_challenge