Keith and Keri Hanson
The Big Sandy Gun Show took place last weekend and was deemed a great success by the vendors and organizers. The event typically draws several hundred people into the community over the course of the weekend. Those people patronize local businesses, giving the local business community a shot in the arm.
The show included a memorial display for Duke Pursley, who was well loved in the community. Some of his engraving work was on display and many in attendance spoke at length about his personality and character. It would be difficult to do justice to that aspect of the show in the same setting as an article describing the turnout and business aspects. Next week's Mountaineer will feature an article about the memorial, his work, and the things attendees had to say about their absent friend.
Keith Hanson, who organized the show, described the turnout as of mid-morning Saturday: "I'm thinking we're gonna have a better turnout this year than the last year or so. Yesterday was good. We had about 100 people yesterday, and we're hoping for 200 or 300 through the door. There's a lot of things happening in Big Sandy today, and I think that'll help." Keith explained that they had been seeing a lot of new people who had not previously been to a show in Big Sandy.
The local gun show came to Big Sandy after Ron Otto talked Keith into duplicating the event he had been running in Chinook for years. "I put on the one in Chinook. Our gun show for our Rod club and Gun Club, and we decided that Big Sandy needed one. Ron asked me to do it. So I said absolutely and being old owner of the paper, I knew Big Sandy could use the extra support. Keith attributed the success of the event to community support. "I'm gonna tell you, it's the community. The community is like 90% of who's here, and they're supporting us because we're supporting them." In particular, the support of local businesses help make the event successful and improves the experience for vendors and visitors alike. "They make sure that they're staying open different hours to accommodate us. They're over here talking to us to try to accommodate our vendors. I mean, we bring 30 to 40 new people into town for three days. We're bringing other people from different communities to come in and sit down for the day. They're going to eat lunch. They're going to possibly have a beer. They're going to buy stuff in town."
Ron Otto also described the local impact: "It boosts the town. You got a lot of people at The Motel and then you've got prime rib tonight at the Mint, so they'll get a bunch orders there."
I spoke with Glen McCaffrey from Great Falls, who is visiting the
Big Sandy Gun Show for the second time this year. "I would have to say that this is right top of the line. I've been going to the Great Falls Gun Show for probably 48 years, and I like the small town gun shows a lot better. I meet a lot of people that I knew from years ago, and I just liked the whole small town thing to begin with." He went on to describe the warm welcome he's received from locals and local businesses. In particular, he talked about the community that exists between the "generational Montanans" that made his visit to our town "like coming home again."
The sentiment was echoed by Ron: "It's just a good show. We know everybody and everybody knows each other and everybody's happy. We got a table over there to honor Duke and Dolly. We're selling our pictures for us and the proceeds are gonna go to Dolly and the fire department. And of course, then we have the raffle which is 50/50. Half of it goes to the winner, which would be $500. And then $250 for Dolly and $250 for the fire department."
The event witnessed a bit of a hiccup on Saturday Morning, when a four hour power outage left City Hall in the dark. Keith explained that the vendors discussed the challenge and opted to open for business anyway. Shortly thereafter, the power returned and the show itself hummed along as planned. Ron Otto remarked "We opened but we couldn't see anything. It was dark in here, but everybody was happy and that's all that counts."
