Kelleytown Baptist Church, Hartsville SC

Last night I made a trip to Hartsville, SC to Kellytown Baptist Church. The church put on a ?Wild Game Banquet? that had a little something for everyone!  The event was neat and I wish I would have arrived a little bit earlier than I did.  To start off with they had skeet shooting competitions and as I walked up I could hear the final shots being fired in the tie-breaker rounds of the competition.  I didn?t expect to know many people at this event, but before I even got in the door I saw a couple guys I know and even a guy who played on the state championship team with me back in 1997! The good ol? days just never die I don?t guess.

As I got close to the door I could see a Ducks Unlimited chapter breaking down a booth that they had set up outside of the church.  I made my way into the church?s multi-purpose room and could hear music as and smell food as I entered.  It?s always a good sign to smell some country cooking when you enter a room!  The multipurpose room was big in size and there was a band playing on the stage.  There were a couple of tables and displays set up around the room and I made my way to the back to where the Wrecking Crew & Blake Hodge were set up.  Blake was on schedule to do a calling demonstration as part of the program.  When I got to the back and talked to all the Wrecking Crew I noticed that my local taxidermist Carlyle Sutton had some displays set up and one of the deer looked awful familiar too!  Since I knew a couple of people at the back I hung around there and put some WeHuntSC.com stickers on the Wrecking Crew?s table.

And yes we ate some gator!

Once the skeet shooting competitions were complete and everyone made their way inside the emcee started making some announcements.  He gave information on the door prizes and talked about the schedule for the evening.  The preacher then blessed the food and everyone got in a line to eat the food we had smelled for some time.  The buffet line consisted of catfish stew, catfish, rice, and alligator meat.  It was the first time that I had ever eaten any alligator and I have to say?it wasn?t that bad!  (It all tastes like chicken right?)  I snapped some pics of the food and the line in the kitchen and then made my way back out.  They also had a dessert table too.  The dessert table had a bunch of cookies and cakes on it, but I was able to be self disciplined enough to pass it up this time.

After we ate Blake went up and blew his calls for the audience.  I shot some video of Blake shooting, but I?ll have to say that I did a terrible job of filming it.  I kept bumping the camera and I had the tripod head so tightly screwed into place I couldn?t budge it without being rough with it.  So my apologies for the bad filming on this one! 

After Blake came the guest speaker for the evening Mr. Paige Patterson  (no he?s not my uncle).  Paige Patterson is the President of SouthWestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth Texas.  I thought his named sounded familiar and I think I remember hearing Paige Patterson speak a couple of times while I was at Liberty University.  What I didn?t know was that he was a big outdoorsman.  He is definitely a good speaker and he kept the audience engaged throughout the duration of his speech.  His presentation was titled ?On Safari? and it showed all the different species of animals he?s shot in Africa.  See the ?On Safari? PowerPoint presentation.  Mixing humor, hunting stories, and real life, Mr. Patterson stressed the importance of the male influence in the home as it relates to the development of young men and the overall family.  He also told a detailed story of how he led a safari hunting guide to salvation!

After Mr. Patterson spoke the emcee gave out the rest of the door prizes to the audience.  It seemed very fitting that a young kid won the shotgun that someone donated to the event since Mr. Patterson mentioned several times in his speech the notion of how it?s important for a boy to have a gun as he grows up.  He always quickly followed that up with how it was also important that the father guide and instruct the kid on how to use the gun.  It seemed like a good ending to a good night.

I was glad to have gone and met some new people, eat some good food, and hear a good speaker.

Below is a quick video I made from the event...sorry for the bumpy footage

 

Regards,

Clint