Jim Supica to Share Highlights of the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum on Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World Radio
OutdoorHub 08.06.14
The NRA National Sporting Arms Museum, which opened a year ago this month at Bass Pro Shops flagship Springfield, Missouri, store, will be featured on Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World radio. Jim Supica, NRA’s director of museums, will share the stories of the museum’s most rare, historical treasures, which have attracted over 375,000 visitors to date. The show will air Saturday, Aug 9, 2014, at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern time on RURAL RADIO’s SiriusXM channel 80.
“Three hundred and seventy-five thousand visitors in the first year is a remarkable number. The NRA National Sporting Arms Museum at Bass Pro Shops is providing our guests with a positive, educational, and memorable experience with the history of firearms,” said Supica. “That number is even more impressive when you consider that people of all ages are seen admiring the exhibits. The museum staff reports that they regularly see moms and dads reading the exhibit signs to their kids. It’s a wonderful experience for families.”
Supica will join Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World radio show host Rob Keck to provide listeners with an inside look at the:
• Timeline of American sporting arms
• Remington Factory Collection
• Trapshooting Hall of Fame collection
• Frank Pachmayr Foundation collection of exceptional custom firearms
• Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Room
He’ll also share the stories of special historic guns at the museum including:
1. Girardoni air rifle as carried by Lewis and Clark
2. Personal guns of Theodore Roosevelt and family and friends
3. Old West lawmen and outlaws – Frank Hamer, Jesse James, John Wesley Hardin
4. Presidential shotguns
5. Royal fowlers – Napoleon, King James, Duke of York
6. Guns of champions – John Hessian & Pop Farr
7. US 1911 Trials pistols
8. Holland & Holland .600 & .700 Nitro Express
The NRA National Sporting Arms Museum houses an important collection including the firearms owned by U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the flintlock fowlers of English kings, guns of Annie Oakley as well as dioramas that trace the evolution of hunting, conservation and freedom. In total, the museum features more than a thousand sporting arms from the 1600s to modern day.
The museum had its beginnings when Johnny Morris, founder of Bass Pro Shops, visited the NRA National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Va. Awed by the collection, Morris wanted to bring that artistry and history of sporting arms to the heartland of America where millions more people could see it. Sharing the museum’s artifacts with a wider audience was a goal NRA was happy to embrace. With a commitment to sharing sporting arms history, Bass Pro Shops offered its resources to help create the National Sporting Arms Museum. Bass Pro Shops donated the space and designed and built the 7,500-square-foot museum while NRA provided the firearms, text and storylines for the exhibits.
Visitors can see this one-of-a-kind collection by visiting the NRA National Sporting Arms museum, which is located at 1935 S. Campbell in Springfield, Missouri. The museum is open every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and admission is free. For more information about the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum, visit http://www.basspro.com/nramuseum or http://nramuseum.com/.
