BELLE FOURCHE—The Center of the Nation Sportsman’s Club opened its doors to the public on August 30, inviting visitors to come out and tour the facility, learn more about the club and how to get involved while enjoying some good food. It was an opportunity to experience what happens behind the gates of the private club and learn more about what it has to offer.
The annual open house is a way to introduce people to the Sportsman’s Club and its ongoing improvements. “Every year we have an open house. We just want to try to get more people involved and show more people what we have and our improvements, things like that,” explained Fritz Carlson, president. “We’re always trying to improve the range and make it better, make our classrooms better, our targets and everything. And we got trap shooting going on, and it’s just an open, free day for people to come in and see what we got.”
Membership in the club costs $30 a year. “Membership gets you access. You get the combination to the gate, so you come out and shoot pistol, 100 yard, 200 yard. Then we have trap shooting every Wednesday night in summer—come out and bring your own shells, it will cost you $10 for a round of birds,” said Carlson. “The first Wednesday of the month is our monthly meeting. And in the summer, we try to have it out here—we have a meal with our meeting.”
In the winter, the members meet at various locations around Belle Fourche. “When the winter time comes, then we move—it’s just too cold out here so we move into town. We try to pick a different restaurant every month just to spread the business around town,” shared Carlson.
Today, the organization has over 400 members. Rick Walton was one of the founding members of the current Sportsman’s Club. He shared that the Center of the Nation Sportsman’s Club was established around 2001. At the time, Walton and the other founders approached members of the previous club about using its name and range. “So we wanted to start a club, but we wanted a name that people would trust. So we went and talked to Pete and Chuck and the remaining guys and said we’d like to reincorporate—can we reincorporate and use your name? And they agreed,” explained Walton. “They agreed to let us use the range. They leased it to us for like $10, but did not give it to us or turn it over. They said, ‘If you can show us that you’re actually going to survive and that you’ll have a membership.’ Within six months we had 100 members and within six months they signed it over and gave us the deed.”
Safety is important to the Sportsman’s Club. They have a classroom where they teach hunter safety, hunter skills and gun safety, and they focus a lot of their effort on youth. “We do everything for the youth that we can. We fund shooting sports, and just try to help them out as much as we can,” explained Carlson. “We support the youth and that’s what it’s all about.”
This year’s open house had a strong turnout. “It’s been a good turnout today—really good turnout. The best we’ve had in a long time. We’ve got about five or six new members signed up—we’ve had a lot of people today,” shared Carlson.
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