Gun raffle for Georgia high school soccer team draws fire from former students

Lena Smith Nations remembers selling candy to raise money during her days as class president at Dodge County High School.

Recently the 2008 graduate was troubled to learn on Facebook that 30 guns were going to be raffled off over 30 days in September to benefit the Dodge County Indians soccer team.

“I was kind of bothered by it, the audacity of it all, especially in this day and age,” Nations told The Telegraph.

Raffle organizer David Bush has two sons in the soccer program. He said he thought the gun raffle would be an easy fundraiser for the boys and girls organizations.

“Trying to raise money to help with uniforms and feed kids on out-of-town trips, something beyond peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and work on the practice fields,” Bush said. “It seems to be a positive thing, the folks I talked to.”

Nations, who now lives near Atlanta, doesn’t think the gun raffle is a good idea with school shootings making headlines across the country.

Alumna Crystal Velasquez also opposes the raffle.

“To me, it’s a matter of what the school needs to be associated with,” Velasquez said.

Velasquez also recently spoke out about a Dodge County cheerleader booster group selling T-shirts that displayed the saying, “In Dodge County we stand for the flag, kneel for the cross. That’s Indian pride.”

Dodge County school superintendent Michael Ward said the booster group voluntarily stopped selling the shirts after an outcry on social media and political backlash over debate stemming from NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.

Velasquez, who now lives in Macon, is speaking out again when it comes to the gun raffle.

“We’re the so-called liberals speaking out about a T-shirt so, of course, I’m going to speak out,” Velasquez said. “It is so many guns at one time.”

Velasquez does not favor taking guns away from anyone but wants stricter laws and stronger background checks.

Ward, who is in his first year as superintendent of Dodge County schools, said most school systems do not have a policy to deal with the actions of outside groups.

Ward said when he was a teen, rifles were left on racks in students’ cars in the parking lot.

“Things have definitely changed since I went to high school,” he said.

He is not surprised the boosters chose to do a gun raffle in the southeast Middle Georgia community of about 22,000 people.

“This is not unusual because I just came over here from Harris County, and we always had a shotgun raffle and had a shotgun team that actually letters in that sport,” Ward said.

Bush, the raffle’s organizer, said similar raffles have been popular around Telfair and Wilcox counties.

“We made sure the guns we selected are not like assault weapons,” he said. “They are all rifles, shotguns and handguns — all hunting-type stuff.”

Winners must pass a background check, according to the rules.

“If you can’t buy one legally, there’s no use buying a ticket,” Bush said.

Dodge County Sheriff Lynn Sheffield said he is satisfied that the organizers will be abiding by the law.

Sheffield, too, is familiar with gun raffles through the Shriners and other organizations.

In the Indians soccer raffle, 1,000 tickets will be sold at $30 a piece. Each ticket has three numbers, and winners will be picked based on the Georgia Lottery Cash 3 daily drawing.

If the same Cash 3 numbers are chosen more than once between Sept. 1-30, a ticket holder can win multiple guns, Bush said.

M&M Gun and Pawn in Eastman will allow winners to exchange or upgrade a weapon if they pay the remaining balance, according to rules posted with the contest.