Richard Childress

As a two-term member of the National Rifle Association Board of Directors, Richard Childress has proudly advocated and promoted the NRA and gun-owner rights through his many business and public endeavors. The 14-time NASCAR and ARCA championship winning team owner earned six Cup Series championships with the legendary Dale Earnhardt. His latest two wins came in 2011 with grandsons Austin Dillon and Ty Dillon. Childress taught these young men the strong values of gun safety and conservation since they were boys. His success in the business world and on the race track has provided the North Carolina native with the opportunity to become a world-renowned big game hunter, conservationist and gun rights advocate. Childress began his hunting and shooting experience as a boy with a smallbore rifle in the woods near Winston-Salem, N.C. Despite hunting on nearly every continent, some of his best memories are of hunting with his grandsons and the less-than-ideal accommodations while deer hunting with Earnhardt in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As chairman of the NRA Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Committee, Childress is a powerful advocate for hunters’ rights, including keeping ammunition legal and affordable, and recruiting and retaining our nation’s youth in hunting/shooting activities. He works with local, state and national agencies on wildlife/outdoor conservation efforts–his work with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in 2000 helped in the reintroduction of an elk herd into North Carolina for the first time in 200 years. Childress is a Life member of the National Rifle Association, Safari Club International, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Orvis/Grand Slam Club. He is also a board member of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. In 2007, Childress and his family started the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma, whose mission is to save injured children’s lives through research, education and awareness.