 |
About Robin and EllenHometown: Cynthiana, Ky. |
Q&A with Robin and Ellen Gassett
It’s the positive influence they have on others that fuels the desire to commit their time, energy and resources to sharing their hearts, home and guided hunts with others.
NWTF: Tell us about your outfitting company.
Robin Gassett: We are fully accessible and a non-profit organization so we don’t charge a dime for people to hunt with us. We host Wheelin’ Sportsmen and Women in the Outdoors hunts each year, and we pretty much stay booked. We work a lot with soldiers and wounded warriors, which is big deal for me because I am a veteran.
NWTF: What drives you both to donate so much of your time to this cause?
RG: I guess we’re crazy. (laughs) No, really, this whole thing started when my brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer more than four years ago. I made it my business to make sure he killed a big deer; he killed the biggest deer he had ever seen. After that, I hooked up with a child with spina bifida, and we took him on his first turkey hunt. After seeing the look on that child’s face when he got his first turkey, I told Ellen, “Let’s keep this going.”
Ellen Gassett: Then someone called us from Walter Reed hospital and asked us to take an American soldier, who had lost his arm in the Iraq war, on a hunt. The soldier’s mother said that before he hunted with us he wouldn’t leave his room — not even to eat — and he wouldn’t talk to his fiancé or anyone else. She said that after the hunt, he took a 180-degree turn. He went home, got married. The last time Robin talked to him, he was ice fishing.
Seeing what a positive influence we had on that young man motivated us to continue what we were doing, because we saw that we could make a difference.
NWTF: What else makes your outfitter operation so unique?
RG: We dedicated our 15 stands this year to American soldiers who have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. We have a fallen soldier’s picture along with a sheet that tells everything about them — who he or she was, where they served and how they were killed — at each stand.
EG: Honoring our soldiers is so dear to our hearts. We wanted to recognize them and give them a place of honor so people will see what they have done for all of us.
NWTF: How does it feel to work full time and enjoy the outdoors with your spouse?
RG: I enjoy hunting so much more now that Ellen hunts with me, because we get to spend more time together. Doing what we do is a lot of fun, because we meet so many nice people and make so many good friends. It’s my dream job.
EG: I often wonder if couples realize what they are missing. We have had the best time since we started hunting together. And you always have your hunting buddy with you, too, so that’s a plus.
NWTF: What do you think the NWTF and its partners can do to get more people involved in our outreach programs?
EG: We have found that some people do not know there are places that people with disabilities can go to hunt, so I think we can do a better job of putting the word out there about what is available. I also think it helps people get interested in hunting when you have workshops available for people to attend and learn new things.
NWTF: Why do you think the JAKES, Wheelin’ Sportsmen and Women in the Outdoors outreach programs are so important?
RG: I think they are the three most important things the NWTF does. We must get youth involved in hunting, because they are the future of the sport.
As far as the Women in the Outdoors program goes, if you want to make someone mad, try to take a woman hunter’s gun away and, boy, you’ve got a problem. Women vote. We hunted with a woman whose husband does not hunt. She has grandchildren and she will be the person to pass our hunting heritage down to those children.
And our Wheelin’ Sportsmen event will happen twice a year, no matter what, I can tell you that right now.
People have told me that the outreach programs have totally changed their lives. When you change someone’s life, you’ve really done something. — Melanie Swearingen