DATE:    9/15/97
CONTACT: Bill Box,   (803) 684-9919
WRITER:  Bill Baker, (864) 656-3875

Clemson Extension Receives
$5,000 Grant For Camp Matthews

     YORK -- A $5,000 grant from the National Rifle Association
will help fund a 4-H shooting sports program at the Matthews 4-H
Environmental Learning Center.
     "We are hoping to build a skeet range and rifle range," said
Bill Box, who serves as director of both Matthews and the R.M.
Cooper 4-H Leadership Center in Summerville.
     "Hunter education is a goal of ours, and the state
Department of Natural Resources has agreed to work with us on our
plans," Box said.
     The grant will go toward developing the range site, and will
also help pay for equipment and a small shelter.
     The planned Camp Matthews facility will occupy 302 acres
near the western York County town of Sharon, on property donated
to the Clemson University Foundation by Mrs. Grace B. Matthews in
1985. It will be a year-round camp for schoolchildren and other
groups to learn about forestry, agriculture, soil science, water
resources and wildlife conservation.
     "We are building this camp with private donations, not state 
funds," Box said. "How quickly all the planned facilities are in
place depends on the success of the fund-raising effort."     Matthews will be the first 4-H camp in the Upstate. It will
be similar to the W.W. Long Leadership Center in Aiken County,
built in 1934, and the Cooper Center, built in 1939.
                           END