Rogers Lands Top Air Rifle Event
Posted: November 20, 2009 at 5:03 a.m.
ROGERS — A top air rifle match that has been held in Kentucky for 16 years is moving to Rogers this summer.
The Daisy International BB Gun Championship will be held at the Rogers High School indoor football practice facility June 28-July 4.
About 500 competitors age 8-15 from the United States and Canada will take part in the match. Rogers is home to air-rifle maker Daisy Outdoor Products.
Families will travel to the city with the shooters to bring 1,200 to 1,500 visitors into Rogers for a week, said Daisy spokesman Joe Murfin. The event will have an economic impact of about $1 million for the city, according to Tom Galyon, executive director of the Rogers Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Timing of the event is good, Galyon said, because the week of Independence Day is typically slow for the lodging industry in Rogers. The city’s motels will benefit from the midsummer scheduling.
The 44-year-old match has been held the last 16 years in Bowling Green, Ky., at Western Kentucky University. Murfin said Daisy has wanted to relocate the match to Rogers for five years, but there wasn’t a building large enough for the 5- and 10-meter shooting matches until the Rogers High School indoor practice facility was built.
Rogers Public Schools, Daisy and the city have worked together to bring the match to town, said Rogers Mayor Steve Womack.
Womack regrets that Bowling Green lost the event to the home town of Daisy BB guns, but said it’s the city’s goal to make the competitors and their families “feel so welcome they can’t wait to come back to Rogers.”
Daisy has been headquartered in Rogers since 1958. Manufacturing was moved to Missouri several years ago, but was moved back to Rogers in recent years. Moving the air-gun match to the city was natural, Daisy spokesman Murfin said.
Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Raymond Burns applauded the move.
“Congratulations on moving the last piece of Daisy back to Rogers,” he said.
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