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April 16, 2007 For more information contact: New OWAA Outdoor Skills Award Program to Premiere in Roanoke, Va.Missoula, Mont. – OWAA members can participate in a new event at the 2007 conference in Roanoke, Va. The “OWAA Outdoor Skills Award” program will incorporate supporting member programs and products with active members at Breakout Day and the Shooting Program on Monday, June 18. “The concept is simple,” said Local Co-Chair and Roanoke Times Outdoors Editor Mark Taylor. “In the past, many of our supporting members have created individual contests on Breakout and Shooting day at their individual booths. This year we’re just tying those contests into an overall concept.” The concept has a name: “OWAA Outdoor Skills Award.” Phil Bloom, 2007 conference program chair, says he’d like to see this contest grow into an annual OWAA program. “I think an annual Outdoor Skills award for our members based on friendly competition of this sort is long overdue,” he said. Shooting Program contests could include accuracy, speed, safety or a combination, and Breakout Day contests will vary widely depending upon group goals and imagination. Not all supporting members may elect to participate this year, noted Scott Stouder, supporting member representative and Western field coordinator for Trout Unlimited, but the idea is to make it an annual event. “Our idea is to spice this up with fun but simple contests at each booth, individually tailored to the specific product or message,” Stouder said. “It’ll be up to individual groups, agencies and product manufacturers to devise their own contests.” Each active member will be issued a card with names of participating supporting members and a simple 1-10 scoring system for each contest. Few guidelines will exist. On Breakout and Shooting Day, the cards will be filled out by supporting members based on their own evaluations. The winners will be determined by a simple tally of points and announced toward the end of the conference. “Our idea at this point is to give individual plaques and have some prizes for the first three places,” Bloom said. “We’re not going to dictate anything. It’ll be left up to each supporting member to devise individual contests. It can be hands-on with products, a written test or a verbal test about products or messages,” Stouder said, adding that the Breakout site has a stream running through it. “We’re [Trout Unlimited] teaming up with a fly-rod manufacturer and giving casting lessons. Our contest will revolve around having fun with fly-casting.” The 1,600-member Outdoor Writers Association of America is the oldest and largest association of professional outdoor communicators in the United States. It was organized in 1927 by members of the Izaak Walton League of America and includes professional communicators dedicated to sharing the outdoor experience. OWAA’s professionals include writers, photographers, outdoors radio- and television show hosts, book authors, videographers, lecturers and artists. The association is headquartered in Missoula, Mont. For more information, go to www.owaa.org.
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