Ladies are conservation ‘models’

Anybody who has attended a conservation organization banquet has noticed young women in form-fitting black dresses circulating among the crowd selling raffle tickets.

As always, they were prominent at the Arkansas Chapter of the Safari Club’s annual banquet Saturday at Embassy Suites in Little Rock. It was the last conservation banquet of any kind for the foreseeable future. Attendance was about usual, though less than 250. Attendees were seated more sparsely than usual to reduce contact by seating fewer people per table. Even though each table had settings for eight or more people, most tables seated only four or five.

Dining at my table were Ashley Tuttle of Dallas and Sami Harrington of Temple, Texas. They were, as I was also told by banquet organizers, the organizing team’s best investments. That’s because fundraising success depended on them and the auctioneer.

Harrington and Tuttle work for the Julie Freeman Agency, a modeling agency in Flower Mound, Texas. Julie Freeman Agency models work every conservation event imaginable, including Ducks Unlimited banquets, Dallas Safari Club and Friends of the NRA.

Harrington said she has worked for the Julie Freeman Agency for six years, and Tuttle for six months. Harrington said people who attend conservation banquets are similar everywhere, but with some notable distinctions. At the Arkansas Safari Club event, for example, Harrington said chance purchases for the card raffles and other games were well distributed. In cities like Dallas and Houston, fewer people participate in the games, but those that do, spend big, each plunking down thousands on a single game.

Alcohol consumption is typically a lot higher at Ducks Unlimited events, Harrington and Tuttle agreed.

Harrington and Tuttle said they work events like these on a 10% commission, so they are highly motivated to sell a lot of raffle tickets and chance cards. They also are very perceptive about reading personalities and appealing to the many reasons that move a person to buy chances in auction games. Harrington chats up everybody in a room.

Tuttle said that some people are clearly not interested, so she devotes her attention to the most receptive people. Of course, alcohol consumption can change the equation over the course of the evening, so models must watch closely for verbal and nonverbal cues that might betray a receptive buyer.

They are adroit people managers and poised for anything they might encounter, including inappropriate advances from imbibers.

Because models like Harrington and Tuttle work so many conservation banquets, they know a lot about the organizations and their missions. Hearing their perspectives was the most interesting of many interesting conversations I had at the Safari Club event.

Of course, the live auctions are some of the biggest money makers. Standard fare at any live auction are domestic and foreign hunt packages, high-grade firearms, jewelry and art. Probably because of travel fears related to coronavirus, the hunt packages went surprisingly low at the Safari Club banquet. An all-inclusive safari in South Africa that included trophy fees for two plains animals sold for $3,000. A dove hunt near Cordoba, Argentina, with H&H Outfitters auctioned cheap, too, as did a New Zealand red stag hunt. Because prime hunting is in April and May, enthusiasm for the dove hunt was probably chilled by the Argentine government’s 30-day ban on flights from the U.S.

For some trips, you have to read the details carefully. For example, a semi-guided Kansas deer hunt required the auction winner to be accompanied by another hunter that pays full price. A deluxe, guided, all-inclusive saltwater fishing trip in the Pacific Northwest required the winner to bring two other guests that would pay the full fee of $3,750. That trip brought about the same as a guided striper fishing trip for two on Lake Ouachita, probably because of the difficulty of rounding up two other people to cough up that much money. I suspect that the winner donated the trip back to the organization, or perhaps to another organization, to spare the donor the embarrassment of not getting any bids.

For me, the joy of attending banquets is visiting with friends that support hunting financially and through volunteering. They are the fuel that drives the conservation engine, but organizations like Safari Club are alarmed at the declining number of hunters in the United States.

Because a hunter is seldom near 10 or more people afield, it is a great way to socially isolate while supporting hunting.