News of the Sportsman's Gun Club's survival appears to have been overstated.

The club, located on property owned by the FMC Sportsmen's Club near Winfield, avoided a premature demise when state highway officials routed the new U.S. Route 35 extension around the site instead of through it.

Nine days ago, however, gun club officials learned that FMC club members had voted not to renew the gun club's lease. The news hit gun club members like a magnum load of No. 5 shot.

"We received the letter [Oct. 23]," said Phil Parsons, the group's president. "We weren't expecting it. We were expecting to have to pay significantly more rent after the current lease ran out, but we had no inkling that the lease wouldn't be renewed."

In the letter, FMC club officials gave no reason for ending the 20-year-old agreement.

"At the recent annual meeting of the membership of the FMC Sportsmen's Club, the membership decided to terminate the lease for the skeet range, which expires June 10, 2010.

"The Board of Directors is ready to work with your club to make sure this transition goes as smoothly as possible," the letter concluded. It was signed by Glenn D. Jones, the board of directors' president.

News of the letter spread quickly. Parsons said he has been bombarded with e-mails and phone calls from concerned gun club members. "We have about 115 members, and I've talked to at least 35 to 40 of them so far. All of them want to know what we're going to do and where we're going to go."

Parsons said the news was particularly galling to those long-time gun club members who paid for and oversaw $140,000 worth of improvements to the old FMC facility they leased.

The club, located on property owned by the FMC Sportsmen's Club near Winfield, avoided a premature demise when state highway officials routed the new U.S. Route 35 extension around the site instead of through it.

Nine days ago, however, gun club officials learned that FMC club members had voted not to renew the gun club's lease. The news hit gun club members like a magnum load of No. 5 shot.

"We received the letter [Oct. 23]," said Phil Parsons, the group's president. "We weren't expecting it. We were expecting to have to pay significantly more rent after the current lease ran out, but we had no inkling that the lease wouldn't be renewed."

In the letter, FMC club officials gave no reason for ending the 20-year-old agreement.

"At the recent annual meeting of the membership of the FMC Sportsmen's Club, the membership decided to terminate the lease for the skeet range, which expires June 10, 2010.

"The Board of Directors is ready to work with your club to make sure this transition goes as smoothly as possible," the letter concluded. It was signed by Glenn D. Jones, the board of directors' president.

News of the letter spread quickly. Parsons said he has been bombarded with e-mails and phone calls from concerned gun club members. "We have about 115 members, and I've talked to at least 35 to 40 of them so far. All of them want to know what we're going to do and where we're going to go."

Parsons said the news was particularly galling to those long-time gun club members who paid for and oversaw $140,000 worth of improvements to the old FMC facility they leased.

"When we got here, there were two trap fields and a clubhouse, and only one of the trap houses was functional," Parsons said. "We built the three skeet fields and all but one of the traps that serve the trap fields and the skeet fields."

The gun club was originally located in a remote corner of Kanawha County's Coonskin Park, but a 1990 fire burned the clubhouse and forced club members to move. They chose the FMC location, which had been around since 1952.

Parsons said gun club members were aware that the current lease would run out in June, and were "fully prepared" to pay a lease fee "two to three times higher" when the next agreement was negotiated.

"The one thing we didn't expect was exactly what happened - they chose not to negotiate with us at all," he said.

Earlier this week, I tried to reach FMC club president Jones to find out why his members chose to terminate the agreement. The first call was disconnected before any conversation could take place; the second resulted in an unanswered voice-mail message.

Parsons said gun club members have already started looking for potential places to relocate.

"It's going to be a lot of work to build a new club, but we've done it before," he said. "We'd love to find a place in Putnam County, but we're open to just about anything within about a 25-mile radius of Charleston.

"One thing we have going in our favor is that our equipment will be coming with us. All but one of the traps at the current facility are ours. We'll need to build new fields, trap houses and a clubhouse. That's a tall order, but we think we can get it done."