2018 – 2019 Shooting Sports
We’ve started the new year off with a few changes. The first being a new logo and team name. We are still considered a 4H Shooting Sports team but wanted to give ourselves more of a presence on the national level. This change came about from several parents / shooters asking for something new.
Our new logo went through several renditions and we ended up with something that represents our location, the shooters, and program philosophy. The rifle silhouettes are the actual rifles that the older kids shoot – the Crosman Challenger. The name itself “MT 10x” represents the shooters goal for every shot, which is a 10x. And obviously, the mountains and “MT” note where we’re from.
The kids came up with new shirt colors as well, which will be black and grey, the logo will be white with yellow text for the most part.
We tend to split the kids into two groups – National and 4H, although both groups shoot the MT State 4H tournaments in their respective age groups. The National team also shoots many tournaments at the National level for CMP, Junior Olympics, NRA, and the American Legion.
National Team consists of Howie Edison, Bailey Milender, Heath Edison, Decker Milender, Mackenzie Chapman, and Madeline Drey.
4H Team consists of (so far) Conrad Talbot, Turner Milender, Brydon Drey, Triztan Stedman, Liam Wheeler, and Breydon Simkins.
So far this year the National team has shot two tournaments – the State CMP and the US Army Marksmanship Unit qualifier.
The State CMP tournament, where we placed 1st, qualified the group for CMP Regionals in Utah. Howie, Bailey, and Heath shot high enough to make the final 8 shootout, where Howie ended up 1st, Bailey in 3rd, and Heath in 7th.
We placed 24th in the nation for the USAMU tournament, which qualifies us to go to Fort Benning, GA. We’re not sure that we’ll be able to attend this year with all the other things the kids have going on and fairly quick turn around, as it shoots on January 24th. There were over 900 shooters that shot the postal match to qualify and they take the top 30 individuals and top 30 teams.
We just received postal targets for the American Legion, which we need to shoot prior to February.
Both teams will be shooting in the Lewis and Clark County and Flathead County tournaments at the end of January.
Something I failed to update last year was Howie Edison making it to the American Legion tournament. They only take the top 15 shooters in the nation and they can only go once in their class. The tournament is held at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
Howie qualified in 10th place and after two days of shooting was in 3rd place for the final, where they have the top 8 shooters. Howie ended up getting pretty sick while there and was unable to shoot the final and therefore ended up in 8th place. A great accomplishment nonetheless – Awesome Job Howie.
