Greetings Indiana shooters!
I would like to introduce myself as your new Indiana ATA Delegate. After 10 years as serving as our Indiana Delegate, Roland King has left some awful big shoes to fill in this role. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or information you may have.
As I compose this article, it is now late July but will be early September when you read it. Personally I am still working on getting all of the mud washed off of everything from this year’s Indiana State shoot! Wow we got hit hard with rain this year. I just read that July 2015 is the 4th highest rain total for a month in Indianapolis history. Not the 4th most in July history, the 4th most in any month since the 1870’s! I must say that on Tuesday morning of the State shoot the Indiana Gun Club looked like a well- manicured Country Club. Phil & Amanda Baker and all of their employees are to be applauded for having IGC in such great shape prior to the shoot this year. Unfortunately about an hour after getting started with the first event on Tuesday the rain started falling and didn’t seem to stop all week. I want to thank each and every shooter that attended the State shoot this year, Indiana residents as well as our many friends from out of state. Our entry numbers were down overall, but all things considered with the weather we still had a very successful 2015 Indiana State shoot!
I would like to congratulate all of our 2015 Indiana State shoot trophy winners, especially our Championship Event winners. For Singles, Tom Kleyla outlasted Raymond Strabavy & Devon Harris in the shoot-off’s of 199’s to win the Singles Championship on Saturday night. John Fry is our new Handicap Champion, posting the lone 98 of the day. In Doubles, Garl Gresley made it back-to-back Doubles Championships for him as the repeat winner, although he did improve on the 99 he broke in 2014 with a perfect 100 in 2015! Curt Lunsford was our High All Around champion with a 391, and Eric Shroyer took the HOA crown with an impressive 1159 total.
At the Indiana Trapshooter’s Association Annual Meeting held on Friday night at the State shoot, the 2015-2016 ITA Board of Directors were elected. Al Gamblin will serve as President this year, with Don Carlton being Vice-President. Newly elected Southern Zone Director Larry Schauss joins myself, Bob Reynolds, Dave Cates, Keith Weller, Bill Mager, Dave Wade & Don Barker as Directors. Bill Radwan will continue as our Secretary/Treasurer, Dr. Scott Norris as our Hall of Fame Director, and Roland King will be Ex-Officio. In addition to my election as your ATA Delegate, John Harden is now the 1st Alternate ATA Delegate and Roland King is 2nd Alternate.
I’d like to take a moment of your time to bring attention to four guys that need to be thanked again and again for truly making our Indiana State shoot possible. There are countless people always working behind the scenes within our organization, doing things that no one knows about or even thinks about to make our shoot possible. These four guys showed up at IGC a full week before the shoot started, working on installing the Pat-Traps, preparing the campgrounds and basically working their tails off to make the Indiana State shoot happen. The next time you see Dave Wright, Sal DeSantis, Bill Mager & Rick Dillion, please make sure you let them know how much the trapshooters of Indiana appreciate all of their hard work and dedication to this sport of trapshooting.
With the new target year upon us September 1st, there are a couple of upcoming shoots here in Indiana that I want to be certain you are aware of and hopefully will make plans to attend.
Fall Creek Valley Conservation Club will be hosting their annual “Shoot for the Cure” on September 12th & 13th. This will be the fifth year for this shoot with proceeds benefitting cancer awareness and research, with almost $22,000 total donated as a result of the past four annual shoots. Dan & Desira Fesler always go all out to make this a fantastic shoot, and have made some major improvements at the FCVCC club with recent renovations to the clubhouse and have plans to renovate the trap fields this fall. The Shoot for the Cure program is 200 Singles on Saturday the 12th and 50 pair of Doubles followed by 100 Handicap on Sunday the 13th. This is a shoot that you definitely don’t want to miss!
Another big event in Indiana this month is the 28th Annual Tippecanoe Valley Championships on September 26th & 27th at Fulton County Gun Club. If you haven’t attended this shoot or this club before you should absolutely put it on your list of things to do. Don Barker and Staff put on a great shoot and the Tippecanoe Valley Championships is one of the biggest shoots in Indiana each year. This shoot program is 200 Singles followed by 50 pair of Doubles on Saturday, September 26th, and 200 Handicap targets on Sunday the 27th. Plenty of camping spots along the beautiful Tippecanoe River are available on a first come, first serve basis. Also the club will be open for practice on Friday at 2pm as well. Be certain to check out the great selection of food available from the kitchen as you will not be disappointed!
One other note…please go ahead and mark your calendars for next year’s 122nd Indiana State Trapshooting Championships which will be held July 5-10, 2016!
Jason Barnett
ATA Delegate