Hot and dry in July?
Who would have thought…
The July 2007 match is now in the books…or should I say posted on the Internet?
July and August are typically our hottest matches of the year and this past weekend was no exception. It was almost 70 degrees as I made my way from Southwest Virginia to “The Range With No Name” and quickly got hotter and hotter. I’m certain that it was in the nineties by the time we finished putting up the steel and just about everyone had almost melted!
Middle Creek Kid wrote the stages for this month and did an outstanding job. The scenarios were easy to understand and fast and furious. We had 33 shooters and there were plenty of folks shooting stages in the sub 20 second range and even more in the sub 30 second range. Lead was flying and ringing steel and everyone had a great time.
Ringer was the fastest gunslinger of the bunch as usual, but a couple of misses and a few bobbles here and there cost him the match in rank points. Lil Weasel was our “Top Gunslinger” and shot the match clean as well. Sheez Packen and Marshal Plank Shade also shot the match clean. Mort Dooley was second overall in rank points and Ringer ended up third.
I computed the scores when I got home on Saturday and checked them over and emailed them to Doc Willoughby to put on the website. He had them on there before Sunday came to a close and we thank him for his efforts and all of the support he gives the club by maintaining the website and posting scores quickly for us. Everyone likes to see how they did in a match and it is to our credit and Doc Willoughby’s that we have our scores posted as quickly as we do.
We had several visitors from area clubs this weekend and they all had a great time. We had folks from the Smoky Mountain Shootist Society and the High Country Cowboys as well as others. These folks support our club by coming and shooting with us and we should return the favor. I’m going to Asheville this weekend to shoot with the High Country Cowboys as well as a few others from our club. The way that the shooting schedules are set up for area clubs, you can shoot every single weekend if you are so inclined.
We did have some sad news to report at our match this weekend. One of our long time members, Reno Luck, passed away the week before the match. Reno Luck has been a strong supporter of the club and had donated all of the lumber used to make the dividing walls between the stages when we were first beginning the range in Rogersville. He was a very close and personal friend of Cumberland Mountain John and we will all miss him. Our Secretary, Sheez Packen, will be sending a condolence card to his wife and family as well as his shooting award certificate from June. We will also be submitting an article for the “Trail Markers” section in the “Cowboy Chronicle” to be published at a later date.
We have paid our insurance premium for the year and we have sufficient money in our account to build a permanent toilet and a stage front. Peacekeeper has given a proposal to Lowe’s to try and get us an additional $1000.00 in building materials to build another stage front as well. I realize that it is quite hot and dry this summer, but we need to get working and building the rest of the fixtures for the range. We will be contacting all of our members to form work parties to get these projects completed. Donate a little of your time and effort to these projects and we will have a range that will be one of the best in the area.
Thanks to Trooper Lark for his continuing efforts in keeping the grass mowed at the range. Thanks also to Sheez Packen for providing some of the best brownies we’ve ever tasted. No wonder we call her the “Brownie Queen”!
That about wraps up this month’s newsletter. Hope everyone had a great time this weekend and I’m looking forward to the August match and hoping that ya’ll are as well.
Until we meet again…shoot straight, shoot often, but most of all…be safe and have FUN!!!
William A.A. (Bigfoot) Wallace
SASS #52900
Territorial Governor and Treasurer
The Greene County Regulators