Thousands of collectors, shoppers pack gun show at WHS

WASILLA — For many, visiting the Wasilla High School Hockey Booster Club’s Gun and Outdoors Show is an annual tradition. For others, it quickly becomes one.

Over the weekend, dozens of vendors served new and veteran show-goers at the school, offering a wide range of weapons and outdoor wares. The smell of coffee and candied nuts filled the air Saturday as people perused tables covered with antique and contemporary guns and parts, handmade knives and jewelry, camouflage children’s gear, jams and jellies, animal pelts and more.

“It’s a good time out in the community,” shopper Jenny Smart said while perusing the aisles.

While the event would likely draw vendors and shoppers regardless of who else benefited from it, collector and longtime gun show supporter Terry Mangione said he’s in the business of supporting hockey.

“I used to go to four shows a year — now I only come to this one,” he said.

It’s for the kids, Mangione said, but he also enjoys having a full day to “stand around talking about outdoors and guns,” spreading information to the general public.

“The idea is just to introduce people to new things,” he said.

In addition to the garage-sale-worthy “odds and ends” he sold at this year’s show (like gun magazines and belt buckles), Mangione also displayed a few historical items, like a four-barrel pistol modeled after a kind used in the mid-1800s.

“The real thing is probably worth $3,000 and belongs in a museum,” he said.

Mangione said he doesn’t try to trick people — the gun isn’t for sale anyway — but does get a kick out of telling his customers that it only cost him $100.

A few tables down, 41-year Alaska resident Craig Teich took interest in Eagle River gunsmith Randy Moomey’s prop guns — particularly a .30-30 1873 Winchester rifle.

Teich called himself a collector who was “just dreamin’” while visiting the show with his friend, Wasilla Mayor Bert Cottle.

Other show patrons, like Anchorage residents Pat and Carlo Sammartino (who brought their young granddaughter along for the ride) came to buy — though after an hour of shopping they hadn’t ended up with a gun.

“You never know what you’re gonna buy,” Carlo Sammartino said, turning his attention to a new fishing rod.

As he wandered off with his grandchild to buy some peanut brittle, his wife said they typically hit all the gun shows in the area, and have been coming to the Wasilla event almost every year for the past six or seven years. Even before the couple moved to Alaska from Lousiana, the Sammartinos collected all kinds of antique military weapons and generally “supported the gun industry.”

“My husband loves World War II history, and really it’s part of everyone’s history,” Pat Sammartino said.

The couple doesn’t hunt as much anymore, she said, but while they lived in Kotzebue, it was an important part of their subsistence lifestyle.

“That was the grocery store,” she said.

It’s a different story for the Alaska 49ers, a local chapter of the Single Action Shooting Society that’s been represented at the Wasilla show for more than 10 years.

Richard and Betty Faber — known as “Rueben Ryback” and “Lizzy Mae” to the roughly 50 other members in the organization — were at the show this year with Paul “Scout” Brown to let people know about their cowboy club.

“Every member must have an alias,” Brown said from under a wide-brimmed hat.

Brown and Richard Faber said they didn’t have any personal history related to the Old West, but grew up watching shows like “The Lone Ranger,” “Gunsmoke” and “The Wild Wild West” that inspired them to join the club.

Brown said the ’49ers host various categories of competition based on age, clothing and weapon about twice a month at either the Matanuska Valley Sportsman’s Range in Palmer or Birchwood Shooting Park in Chugiak.

Recent Illinois transplant Joshua Broertjes, who is now stationed at JBER, said he heard about the Wasilla gun show from the ’49ers, which he joined upon coming to Alaska.

“That’s why I came, I heard it was one of the biggest in the state,” Broertjes said.

He said it was in fact smaller than many he’d seen in the lower 48, but his wife Kelli pointed out that the show hosted “a lot of people for such a small area.

Joshua Broertjes said he’s done his fair share of shooting before and currently does reloading for himself, but Kelli is “new to this,” she said.

Vendor Becky Schwanke and her business, Tuff Kids Outdoors, is also new to the world of gun and outdoor shows, this weekend being her first at Wasilla High. Her booth was busy on Saturday afternoon with purchases of camo kid shoes and clothing, many of which were made by grandparents.

“I love grandmas and grandpas,” she said with a smile.

Schwanke said she lives in Glennallen but has started coming to shows to “reach a little bit more of an urban audience.”

In the last year and a half she’s been in business, about half her income has come from sales made at shows, she said.

“Online businesses are hard to ramp up,” she said.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.