Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to host fundraiser

Dedicated to wildlife conservation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is an organization with a mission to ensure the future of elk, other wildlife.

In Nevada, the organization’s members strive to ensure there are wild places for Nevada’s wildlife.

With that said, the organization is holding its annual Pahrump Nevada Chapter Banquet event, planned for Saturday, Nov. 13, at the Pahrump Nugget’s event center beginning at 5 p.m., according to Allen Cothron, co-chairman of the Pahrump chapter.

“We’re raising money through our annual banquet and what we do is conserve habitat for wildlife,” Cothron said. “Our mission statement for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is to ensure the future of elk, other wildlife, their habitat, and our hunting heritage. It’s a great organization and we have 500 chapters across the United States, and every chapter tries to do an annual banquet every year.”

What to expect

Along with the dinner, the banquet will provide for live auctions, raffles, and even games of chance for attendees.

“We actually have six games,” he said. “If you play all five of our games, you get a card that has the word ‘bugle’ on it. You get your card punched at each game, and then you put your bugle card in a raffle barrel for a special drawing at the end of the event. It’s just a tool for us to promote people playing all five games.”

Cothron also spoke about the many prizes that will be up for grabs during the event.

“I think we have 124 items this year, including 30 guns,” he noted. “We have a lot of members that have bought their life memberships and they’re getting their life membership guns on their table.”

Members/guests only

Additionally, Cothron said the banquet is exclusively for members of the foundation, as stated in the organization’s bylaws.

“It’s because we are a 501 C3 non-profit status organization and to keep that non-profit status, it has to be members only, or a spouse or a guest of a member,” he said. “Our founding fathers of the organization are based out of Missoula, Montana. They founded this organization in 1984, and these four gentlemen put everything on the line to get this organization started. We don’t want to jeopardize all the work that they did to get this thing going. We don’t want to get in trouble with the IRS, so we have to maintain our memberships.”

Though most, if not all members are familiar with Saturday’s banquet, Cothron said roughly 20 tickets are still available.

“You have to buy tickets online and our online ticket page has all kinds of different options to choose from,” he said. “You have to be a member or a guest of a member to attend and our ticket page which is https://events.rmef.org/shop.”

For additional information on tickets or becoming a member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, email Shelby Evans at campa.shelby@yahoo.com, or call 725-666-4302.

Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes