The single-biggest fundraiser for a graduation celebration for Alma High School seniors this year will be a sold-out adults-only dinner, with attendees competing to win prizes that include several firearms - like an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
Thursday’s dinner - dubbed Guns ’n’ Roses - is a first for a group of parents operating independently of the school to plan a safe, all night celebration for graduating seniors. To raise money, the committee has sold all manner of items: bedsheets and raffle tickets for a large,flat-screen TV, to name a couple.
But the dinner, along with its auctions and raffles of 21 firearms, is expected to produce “the biggest bang for the buck,” said Cheryl Anderson, president of Alma High School’s Project Graduation Committee.
“The gun theme, quite frankly, it came from what’s going to work. Families hunt. People are not as universally freaked out about guns here,” Anderson said.
The gun-themed dinner comes at a time when school administrators and legislators across the nation have engaged in heated debates over the best approach for protecting campuses from gun violence.
In Arkansas, some superintendents started programs to train and arm teachers and staff members to confront armed intruders on campuses, a concept that other superintendents oppose.
The May 17 graduation party for roughly 280 Alma seniors is expected to cost as much as $30,000, Anderson said.
The committee got the idea for the banquet from similar dinners that raise millions of dollars annually for Ducks Unlimited, a national organization founded in 1937 by hunters interested in the conservation of wetlands and habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife.
The Guns ‘n’ Roses dinner is a highly anticipated event in Alma, Anderson said.
The committee is not taking guns onto the high school campus, tickets are not being sold to children, and children can’t buy the guns, she said.
Sidney Burris, a University of Arkansas at Fayetteville English professor who is involved with Arkansans Against Guns on Campus, said raffles with guns are lawful. But, he thinks groups that want to raise money should consider other, less-controversial prizes.
“We are currently conducting a national discussion about gun violence and gun safety, particularly in our schools, and the choice to give guns as prizes for a high school raffle seems to me at least tone deaf, if not ill-advised,” said Burris, who maintains a blog called Gunsense.
“I don’t have an issue with guns,” Anderson said. “Society is full of messages. Anyone who wants to raise a ruckus can find something.”
The committee has sold $5,000 worth of tickets and plans dinner for about 175 people at Warren’s Rec Room in Alma. During the dinner, participants can buy raffle tickets, pay to play games or bid on items in live and silent auctions, Anderson said.
Fort Smith-area businesses donated money for most of the 21 guns, including a Winchester Defender 12-gauge shotgun, .22-caliber rifle from the Duck Dynasty line, a pink camouflage rifle, an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a Browning Silver Hunter 20-gauge shotgun. Other prizes include a Yeti cooler and sports memorabilia, Anderson said.
“The means to the end is about the kids,” Anderson said. “You work hard, and you have a good intention about it. In anything you do, there can be detractors - people who don’t agree or want to stand back and question. I respect their opinions.”
Alma Superintendent David Woolly and Alma High School Principal Jerry Valentine were unaware of the Guns ‘n’ Roses dinner. The school district is not involved in the graduation celebration or the fundraiser for it, and neither event has been promoted by the school district, Woolly said.
Valentine said he’s not concerned about the nature of the fundraiser.
“Guns don’t kill people. People do,” Valentine said. “I don’t get involved in Project Graduation. We’ve got enough at school to take care of.”
PROJECT GRADUATION
Project Graduation is a long-running national movement to provide alcohol-free and drug-free activities for high school students after proms and graduations. Project Graduation activities differ by community, but the activities aim to prevent teen deaths, Anderson said.
“Our kids don’t need to be drinking and driving,” she said. “They’re not legal to drink. They don’t need to feel like as part of their graduation, that’s what has to happen.”
The committee plans an overnight lock-in at the Fort Smith Convention Center on graduation night, Anderson said. This year’s event will feature a sound-and-laser light show, a photo booth and a lounge area for students who want a quieter evening, Anderson said. The committee will provide seniors gifts, such as electronic devices.
The Guns ‘n’ Roses dinner is for adults only, Anderson said, and the committee is taking steps to make sure the fundraiser is safe. Guns will be on display for people to view and handle, but they will be unloaded with trigger locks. There will be no ammunition in the building, she said.
No one who wins a gun will take a gun home that night, Anderson said. Anyone who wins a gun will pick up the prize a few days later at A to Z Sporting Goods in Alma.
While federal gun laws set some restrictions on who can own guns, no laws exist to regulate guns given as prizes, said Grover Crossland, resident agent in charge in Arkansas for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The law requires a federal firearms license for anyone making money on a continuing basis from firearms sales, but a once-a year gun giveaway would not draw the agency’s attention, he said.
Crossland was not familiar with the Alma committee but said the law does not require the group to partner with a licensed federal firearms dealer as it has done.
THE CRITICS
In Alma and the Fort Smith area, thousands of people go into the woods and safely hunt each year, said Chris Baker, a member of the Project Graduation committee.
The only negative feedback Baker has received about the Guns ‘n’ Roses event has come from community members upset that it is sold out, he said.
Baker is among the volunteers investing hours to provide the graduation event this year.
“Alma’s a small town,” Baker said. “Everybody knows everybody. These kids are close. They’ve grown up the last 12 years. With 250-plus graduates, you don’t want to lose any of them. They’re all precious.”
Anderson and other volunteers thought the Guns ‘n’ Roses theme would resonate with the community and make people feel good about contributing to a safe night for the graduates, Anderson said. Not everyone should buy a gun, and anyone who doesn’t want a gun can compete for other prizes, she said.
“If it’s not something that you like, don’t buy a ticket,” she said.
Booster clubs and parent organizations in other parts of the state have given away guns as part of fundraisers, said Richard Abernathy, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators. In some communities, trapshooting - a sport involving shooting clay pigeons with shotguns - is growing in popularity as a high school sport.
Decisions about guns should be left to local communities, Abernathy said. Communities in Arkansas have different beliefs and different needs, and what works for one community may not work for another, he said.
“If Alma feels like that’s a good fundraiser for them, that’s up to them,” he said. “We think that’s certainly permissible.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/23/2014