BY MIKE STEVENS
RAMONA – The Big 5 Outdoor Adventures Kids Photo Contest is one of the longest-running family events on the WON calendar, and every year, it always seems like one couldn’t have picked a better grand prize winner. In the contest, photos are submitted over the course of the year of kid’s enjoying the outdoors, and the top 3 each month receive gift cards for Big 5 Sporting Goods. At the end of the year, a grand prize winner is selected from a year’s worth of entries, and that kid is presented a downright overwhelming grand prize haul from Big 5 and consisting of products from top outdoor brands. This year’s grand prize winner if Chloe Perkins of Ramona, Calif. who was the subject of a great photo that followed a deer hunt.
One thing about the Big 5 team, when it comes to the grand prize pile (which typically requires a truck to haul away), it’s not just stuff for the winning kid. It’s stuff for the winning kid’s entire family.
Just casually scanning the prize list that carries a total retail value of almost $3,000, some of the big ticket items include: a six-person Coleman Sky Dome tent, Stansport Outfitter stove, director chairs, sleeping bags and air beds, an E-Z-Up canopy, Crosman full-auto BB rifle, Tipman Cronus Paintball Marker, an HK BB rifle, Bushnell binoculars, Vortex binoculars and an Igloo Trailmate Cooler.
Top fishing brands that came through with great prizes included Daiwa with multiple spin and baitcast combos as well as fluorocarbon leader wheels, SP Minnows, needle nose pliers and t-shirts. Berkley came through with seven hats, there were three Shakespeare Trout Kits and three more Panfish Kits and a pair of Plano Weekend Series 3600 tackle boxes.
And that’s not even all of it. It’s enough to make Chloe and the Perkins family the envy of the entire campground for years to come.
The 2026 Big 5 Outdoor Adventures Kids Photo Contest is currently underway. Submissions can be made by visiting WONews.com and clicking BIG 5 KIDS CONTEST at the top. From there, photos can be uploaded of children age 14 or younger proudly displaying their catch or harvest with some information about the young angler and hunter as well as contact info. Each month, the first-place winner receives a $100 Big 5 gift card, $75 goes to second place and $50 for third. One of those monthly winners will be named the grand prize winner at the end of the contest.
Submit entries at WONews.com, and visit Big5.com to see everything they bring to the outdoor table.
