Leupold & Stevens Joins B&C's 29th Big Game Awards as Sponsor

Leupold & Stevens is underwriting a special Fair Chase Award as part of a larger sponsorship behind one of North America's longest-running celebrations of big-game conservation and management--the Boone and Crockett Club 29th Big Game Awards, scheduled for July 14-16, 2016, in Springfield, Missouri.

The triennial Boone and Crockett Club 29th Big Game Awards will take place at the Bass Pro Shops flagship store in Springfield. The event offers a public exhibition of World's Records and Top-5 trophies in all categories of native North American big game, plus records-book specimens taken during the past three years by hunters age 16 and under. 

"Boone and Crockett began hosting public exhibitions of big game trophies in 1947," said Club President Morrie Stevens. "It's an opportunity for people to see the trophies that we honor as symbols of America's incredibly successful conservation system. It's a system led and funded primarily by sportsmen, but it benefits all wildlife as well as all citizens who appreciate wildlife and wild places."

One of these trophy owners from the participants in Springfield will be selected for the special Hunt Fair Chase Award. The award recognizes an approach to hunting that best exemplifies the tenets of fair chase.  

Stevens said, "Fair chase was a conscience choice to help recover many of our treasured big game species from extinction in the early days of the conservation movement. It was a reflection of the values Club founder, Theodore Roosevelt held in highest regard such as self-reliance and restraining one's action to serve a greater goal than that of personal gain. Fair chase remains a reflection of a conservation ethic to this day."

The Club formalized fair chase in 1960 when we began requiring a signed hunt affidavit along with each trophy entry into Boone and Crockett records. In 1974, that requirement changed to include a notarized statement of fair chase. Today, the Hunt Fair Chase Award is one more way to underscore a conservation ethic that is just as important to conservation today as it was during Roosevelt's time.

"Our commitment to conservation runs deep here at Leupold & Stevens," explained Bruce Pettet President and CEO of Leupold & Stevens, Inc. "Like the Boone and Crockett Club we understand just how intertwined fair chase and conservation really are. Sponsoring this award and making more people aware of this fact is a perfect reflection of our company's values," Pettet continued.

Stevens added, "By sponsoring this event and the Hunt Fair Chase Award, Leupold is helping us spread the word that America's conservation system continues to work well today, and that there is a high ethical standard that sportsmen hold themselves accountable to that is conservation at its core."

In addition to the trophy exhibition, the event offers registered attendees a chance to enjoy seminars, an auction featuring hunts in top big game destinations across the continent, and evening awards banquets and presentations.

More information on the Boone and Crockett Club 29th Big Game Awards is available at www.biggameawards.com.

To date, the growing list of sponsors for the Boone and Crockett Club 29th Big Game Awards includes Wild Sheep Foundation, Federal Premium Ammunition, Dallas Safari Club, DNZ Products, Americase, Weatherby, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Kimber Manufacturing, Buck Knives, the Mule Deer Foundation, the Guide and Outfitters Association of British Columbia, Yellowstone Press, and Bear Trust International.