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Trap shooting may become school sport
Published 11:02am Tuesday, February 12, 2013Though they admit the timing is unfortunate, members of the Lakes Area Shooting Center are looking for Fergus Falls School Board approval to create a high school trap shooting team this spring.
The board will consider approving the team Feb. 26.
The team would compete with 33 gun clubs representing 100 schools across Minnesota. Trap shooting has been a high school sport since 2001, and has grown to 1,700 participants, said Lakes Area Shooting Center member Russ Larsen.
Larsen also noted that of the 100 teams last year, 76 are expecting more members than last year, and that 120 new schools — including Ashby and Perham/New York Mills — made inquiries about the league.
“It has been fantasticly successful,” Larsen said. “It appeals to a lot of kids who don’t participate in the traditional sports.”
The team, which would be coached by co-coaches Ranae and Mike Edwards, would be limited to 20 students due to a requirement from the Minnesota Clay Target League that limits 10 students per coach.
The 10-week season would begin in April, starting with two weeks of practice, a six-week season, and culminating in a statewide shoot-off in Alexandria the first week of June, followed by a state championship held in the Twin Cities that has been endorsed by the Minnesota State High School League board.
“This is something they could participate in and form new friendships with kids from their own school and other schools,” Lakes Area Shooting Center member David Weiss said.
It did not escape neither school board nor shooting center members that they were trying to create a high school shooting team at a time when gun control is in the national spotlight due to the Dec. 14 school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
“As a mom, it makes me nervous, but I could see the kids really enjoying it,” School Board member Tarma Carlson said.
Larsen and Weiss said the club would not allow participants to carry their guns in their vehicles. “Kids should go home, pick up their guns and come to the club,” Weiss said. Ammunition will be stored at the club.
Larsen also pointed out that, since trap shooting became a high school sport in 2001, there have been zero reported injuries or violations of school gun policies among participants.
“That’s just a great record, Larsen said. “The primary emphasis is just safety, safety, safety.”
Students who participate are required to have received their State Firearms Safety Certificate. While Weiss said he expects most students to have their own guns, shooting center members would be willing to loan guns to students who If situation come about because no gun in family, there are enough of us in the club to have an extra gun to loan them to use.
Athletic director Gary Schuler said trap shooting would be considered an independent provider, similar to alpine skiing, nordic skiing, figure skating, dance and adaptive bowling. He pointed out that high school coaches voted 10-1 in favor of approving the sport.
The only concern, he said, is that athletes are not leaving practices or events in other sports to go to trap shooting practice.
“If this is an opportunity for an athlete to earn a letter in a sport that wouldn’t otherwise, that’s a great thing,” Schuler said.
Superintendent Jerry Ness said one concern was the proposed Wednesday evening practices, which would interfere with church schedules. Weiss said while Wednesdays are ideal since shooting center members meet that night, they could certainly accommodate a different day.
The Lakes Area Shooting Center, Pheasants Forever, and the Fish and Game Club has already donated funds for shotgun shells and targets, meaning participating students would pay only the district’s $40 activity fee and $20 for the shooting center’s registration and insurance policy.
Ranae Edwards said she is excited about the possibilities for the co-ed sport, and believes that she can teach participants a skill they can use for a lifetime.
“The first time hit that clay target, the excitement goes on for five minutes,” said Edwards, who has taught more than 500 students to shoot through 4-H.
Once approved, student partcipants would have to be registered by March 15.
I think our students should shoot any aggressive skeet’s with AR-15 assault rifles or Suppressed M-5’s with 200 round magazines just in case they are attacked by hordes of tyrannical skeet trying to take their freedom and Liberty.
I get that you’re trying hard at snarky sarcasm here but this one sort of falls flat.
Says you!
Let’s face it Curly, you are terrified that people learn that shooting and owning firearms is commonplace among the American populace since our patriotic forefathers threw off a dictatorial king with their own muskets.
It is obvious that you will say anything to support your would be Supreme Leader for Life in his efforts to demonize gun offers and sieze their means of defense against his tyranny. And, here I thought that you lefties were saying it is OK for people to own firearms used for hunting and sport, just not to own firearms which might be used in self defense against aggressors and dictators.
Face this Camilla/Ginny/Willie, I’m a gun owner. But I’m a reasonable gun owner, unlike your hero Ted Nugent the draft dodging coward pedophile and golden boy of the NRA.
Did you ever have a sense of humor or were you born as an old sour puss, hallucinating about one conspiracy after another. Bouncing from one wall to the other leaving humorless splotches wherever you land.
There is a club for humorless people in Salt Lake City Utah. The name of the club is “GRUMP” which is an acronym for “Good Riddance to Unrelentingly Morose People”. You can read about the club in the Desert News newspaper. Send them your résumé, they may make you President
wow richard, in my opinion you have fallen off your rocker and are totally dellusional. im sorry but the pedophile remark was too much. i have sent your post to mr. nugents agent. dont be surprised if you get a letter or two. dick, you cannot scandel and libel people at will without feeling the effects of your untruths
I think Mr. Daniels, that you need to brush up on the history of Ted Nugent. Do that, then come back here and we’ll see if you still want to defend his actions.
Google this Tom Daniels “is Ted Nugent a Pedophile”,
hey dick, try actually reading the story, she was 17
That’s quite a defense “well you honor, technically she wasn’t 18, but still…….”
Try again Tom there was more than one and remember he was 34 at the time. Check out the VH1 video.
I have to wonder at what age do you consider his behavior to be unacceptable…how about 16? Still too old?
Well how about 14 Tom, is that still acceptable conduct to you? Would you stop defending Ted Nugent if the girl was12?
Where’s the dividing line in your world Tom, between a 34 year old self admitted pedophile and just another good old boy that likes little girls, with guys like you to run interference for him.
Richard why don’t you learn what pedophilia is before you mislabel someone. Try using Google yourself you self righteous blowhard.
He did have an interesting way to avoid the draft. He leaves it up to us to wonder if he used his boxers as diapers or not as he said both he did and he did not. Strange spokesman.
Does “statutory rape” by a pedophile make you feel better Ron? Is it OK now?
This is one proposal I support. However, I would like to see more people step up to run the program so more than 20 students can participate if they choose to do so. It would be nice if students could compete with other local students year around lettering during the school year. Just like band and choir. Band students do parades in the summer, how about student skeet teams meeting all summer at the range to compete like bowling leagues or gulf clubs?
Led by our President, a trap shooter himself, the Dow closed today at this year’s high, almost an all time high, but that’s another story. What I wonder now, if trap shooting becomes a competitive sport in the Fergus Falls school system will this help pass the bond referendum for other district sporting facilities?
I think it would be a great idea to open up the eyes of a lot of people about guns. I hope that ANY student would be afforded the chance to make the team and not just open to the children of the “rich parents”in money or power. Unfortunately (sp?) it would be an expensive sport to continue in I would think.And as far as the puking of Mr. Olson’s remarks all over this page might I suggest you get checked by a psych doctor for you maybe having some serious ADHD running wild inside your brain because staying on task in your writings was next to impossible.
Ah, another local expert in the discipline of remote psychoanalysis, been watching a little too much Dr. Phil? What is it you object to Bill Flietstra? Sarcasm regarding gun safety or calling out pedophiles or both.
Get over yourself.
Curly, how interesting to see that you continue to wage your lifelong fight against mental health.
Ginny, your comment makes absolutely no sense, as usual.
By the way Ginny, I see despite the passage of 22 hours you still can’t find that statement you say I said in the thread “Obama embodiment of the leftist agitator”. What’s the matter? Surely you weren’t lying were you? I guess you must have been because I know you could find at least 10 new conspiracies in 22 hours. Or did you just let your mouth overload your …… again?
So the guy who made the first post on this thread, which made absolutely no sense, takes someone else to task for doing the same? Keep up the good work Chip.
Let me point out the difference for you since it is obviously over your head alias Holly. My first comment was sarcasm, I didn’t tell a lie about anyone. Your mirror image “Camilla” told a lie about me. She got caught and now can’t show the proof that I lied. The fact that you can’t tell the difference between a lie and sarcasm and the fact that you prefer to defend the liar, speaks volumes about you.
I’ll go slow for you Chip, so you might understand. Your sarcastic comment made no sense. The article is about a trap shooting club (using shotguns). You talk about skeet and rifles. Perhaps you don’t know the difference between trap and skeet, or between rifles and shotguns. More likely Frizzel Boscoe nailed it with her comment.
Go as slow as you like alias Holly, make it easy on yourself. Attempting to explain sarcasm to a tea bagger with a humorless disposition is a wasted effort. I at least expected you to be able to tell the difference between sarcasm (whether good or bad) and an outright provable lie. Apparently the leap was too great for you.
Trapshooting is one of the three major disciplines of competitive clay pigeon shooting (shotgun shooting at clay targets). The other disciplines are skeet shooting and sporting clays. Within each discipline, there are variations.
Skeet shooting is a recreational and competitive activity where participants, using shotguns, attempt to break clay disks automatically flung into the air from two fixed stations at high speed from a variety of angles.
Skeet is one of the three major types of competitive shotgun target shooting sports (the others are trap shooting and sporting clays). There are several types of skeet, including one with Olympic status (often called Olympic skeet or international skeet) and many with only national recognition.
Both definitions are from “Wikipedia” which is confirmed by the American Skeet Shooting Club. Most people will understand when they read that both “Trap” and “Skeet” can/are shot with shotguns. (that’s where the sarcasm come in)
Trap originally referred to the cage (trap) which held the live pigeon NOT the object flung into the air.
I would think if anyone, you would be an expert on being a “pigeon”. Now, why not tell me how you can fail to differentiate the above from a provable lie.
The lie is that you are “a reasonable gun owner”. If that were true, you would laud a new school program that teaches our local youth how to be “reasonable gun owners”. Instead you chose to be sarcastic and snarky. Keep up the good work, Chip.
I’ve seen better “back tracking” by Jerome Mullins. Pitiful, just pitiful.