Cabela's shareholder meeting tallies record attendance

The Cabela's annual shareholder meeting last week drew its biggest crowd yet.

Last year's meeting had a little more than 1,000 attendees, but this year's gathering blew that out of the water with around 1,500 in the crowd. Most of those present consisted of shareholders and employees, said Cabela's communication specialist, Nathan Borowski.

"We tried and strived to make it as big as ever this year," Borowski said.

With an estimated 3,000 people at the Luke Bryan concert the night before the official shareholder meeting, the recreational portion of the festivities was a huge success. Bryan is a Cabela's ambassador and the academy of country music's entertainer of the year.

But with 1,500 at the official shareholder meeting, the Sidney High School auditorium was packed and there was overflow seating watching the meeting on big screens in the middle school. Shareholder Jean Lashley, who was a stockholder when the meetings were much smaller, said the event gets bigger and better every year.

The meeting was a little different this year, because it was a sort of send-off to the company's founder, Dick Cabela who is stepping down as chairman and handing off the baton to his brother, Jim Cabela. Dick Cabela is now chairman emeritus. Many at the meeting were very emotional during the tribute.

"We wanted to make the tribute to Dick and Mary as big as possible," Borowski said.

Cabela's was founded in Chappell 1961 around Dick and Mary Cabela's kitchen table. They used to write down customer information on recipe cards. Dick would work all day at his father's furniture store, and then come home and help Mary fill customer orders at night. Dick's brother, Jim, joined them in their efforts in 1963 and the company took off from there.

The company made more than $1 billion last year, and 16 stores are set to open in the next two years. It doesn't appear that Cabela's growth shows any sign of slowing.