News : Banquet, auction help Ikes improve area\'s nature

Matt Purdy poses in the hunting blind he won at the Red Cedar banquet.

Tom Stueck holds the raffle jar while Bill Keller draws a ticket and Katie Stueck holds the prize.

The Red Cedar Shooters receive funding from the Ikes for their trap shooting team.

Ty Stueck and Cole Garwood were among the teen winners at the Ikes banquet.

Three hundred and sixty-one years after Englishman Izaak Walton published his historic book, "The Compleat Angler," the American conservation club that bears his name continues to make a difference in environmental causes.

And the local Izaak Walton members are doing their part to help improve Benton County's nature.

A modern reprint of one of the very first famous books published in English -- "The Compleat Angler" by Izaak Walton -- was among the items auctioned on Saturday to raise money for the Red Cedar Chapter of the Izaak Walton League. Nearly 140 people attended the chapter's annual banquet and auction, where they bid on scores of items donated by area artists, craftsmen and businesses.

The Ikes, as members call themselves, use the proceeds of the fund-raiser for a variety of local conservation projects. They also help fund the Red Cedar Shooters, the Vinton-Shellsburg High School trap shooting team. Several team members attended the event.

One of the donors was Cedar Rapids artist Greg Bordigan, who offered the club two framed prints of a patriotic design he named "Standing Together." The artist asked that whoever was the highest bidder would keep one print for himself and donate the other to a soldier or veteran, said Tom Boeckmann, the Ikes member who also served as auctioneer for the event.

Ikes President Bill Keller thanked the donors and participants, and offered a special thanks to Tom and Cyndi Stueck and their family, who spent several months collecting the many donated items. Ikes members sold more than 14,000 raffle tickets. Tom Stueck said the banquet normally brings in $10,000 to $14,000 each year.

See more photos of the banquet and auction HERE.

If you want to read the original version of "The Compleat Angler," in its original 17th Century English, click HERE.

Click here to see more prints by Greg Bordigan