Hi, everyone. I want to start with some milestones shooters have reached in Illinois. Steve Dinkleman and Donald Schneider have shot 25,000 Singles targets. Dave Bockhold and Tal Parmenter have shot 25,000 Handicap targets. Anthony Fortino has shot 50,000 Singles targets and Charles Vanderveen has shot 75,000 Singles targets. Well done all you guys!
The Illinois Central Zone shoot was held at the Peoria Skeet & Trap club over the Memorial Day weekend. The weather was perfect, good scores were shot and everyone had a good time. Both the Singles and Doubles were won by Ken Mitchell and the Handicap and HOA were won by Willam Christensen. By the way, if you have never shot at Peoria, you need to put it on your to do list. It is a pretty well-run club.
As I am writing this, the Illinois State Trap shoot has just finished up. It was a GREAT shoot! Our attendance was way up, good scores were shot everywhere, and the weather was perfect until the rain god got us during the last event on Sunday. We have some incredible youth shooters in Illinois as witnessed by all 5 of our Championships that were won by kids. Wyatt Williams won the Singles. Wyatt Sibley won the Doubles. Ian Freeman won the Handicap and Landon Sievers won both the HAA and the HOA. I'm starting to feel like the only thing I'm good for is to carry their shell bags. Besides winning Championships, the kids put on some amazing displays of shooting. The squad of Steve Margherio, Landon Sievers, Wyatt Williams, Sam Gilman and Drake Reynolds broke three 499 x 500 and a 998 x 1000 in the Singles Championships. Just awesome!
On behalf of the Illinois Board of Directors and the Mohr family I want to give a big thank you to all of you that shot at our shoot this year. It means a lot to us that you came and helped make our shoot so great. I said earlier that the weather was perfect until the very end. We were forced to postpone the Handicap until Monday due to bad weather. About 100 shooters were forced to pull out because they had to be at work the following day. We went from a Comp 5 shoot to a Comp 4 shoot due to this. We have appealed this to the Executive Committee because we had no control over the weather. Stay tuned, I'll let you know what happens.
Get out and shoot, have fun and support your local clubs.
Bill Duncan, ATA Delegate