July 14 and 15 the Cardinal Shooting Center was the 2nd annual, 100 target sporting clays fun shoot benefiting Kids & Clays and the Scholastic Clay Target Program. The event was held during SSSF’s Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) and Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) National Championships. Youth and adults, competed in this fun 100 target Sporting Clays charity event! The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation (SSSF) is the nation’s leader in youth development shooting sports programs. The Kids and Clays Foundation supports a series of shooting events across the country with all proceeds benefiting Ronald McDonald House Charities. All proceeds from this special two-day event helped each organization fulfill their mission. See complete results of the event here.
The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation (SSSF), parent organization for the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) and Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP), is announcing a change of venue for the 2016 SCTP and SASP National Championship events. The 2016 National Championships are being planned for July 9-16 at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, Ohio. The World Shooting and Recreational Complex (WSRC) located in Sparta, Illinois, has been home of the SSSF National Championships for the last several years. Due to the unresolved statewide budget issues in Illinois, the state-owned WSRC remains closed at this time with no communicated schedule for reopening. The SSSF board of directors and senior leadership team have evaluated different options to keep the event in Sparta. Due to the continued unresolved budget situation and potential for government-mandated continued closure, the Foundation feels it is in the best interest of its members to provide certainty for the 2016 National Championship event. The SSSF National Championships contract with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) extends through July of 2017. The SSSF and IDNR have mutually agreed to suspend the contract for 2016 and will meet again to revisit the terms for 2017 in September of this year. The Foundation has entered into a one year agreement with the Cardinal Center Campground and Shooting Center to host the 2016 National Championships. The Center has 52 trap fields, 3 sporting clays courses, and rifle and pistol range construction is well underway. Several large-scale infrastructure projects are commencing at the center to accommodate the multiple shooting disciplines the SCTP and SASP championships bring. These projects include construction of 14 new skeet fields and 14 new action shooting bays which are scheduled to be completed well prior to the championships in July. Considered Ohio’s premier public shooting sports facility, the Cardinal Center offers impressive shooting ranges, as well as an indoor heated pool, lake for fishing, lots of outdoor activities, and great facilities for family camping, including 550 camp sites and Wi-Fi service available on the grounds. The center is located at I-71 (exit 140) and St. Rt. 61, just 30 miles north of Columbus and in close proximity to several hotels and restaurants. Looking for Lodging? CLICK HERE To schedule practice for SCTP Nationals at the Black Wing Shooting Center, click here. SASP Schedule and information, click HERE SCTP Schedule and information, click HERE. Click here for Cardinal Center facility map, tournament facility locator and vendor directory 
The Scholastic Clay Target Program recently completed its National Championships for International Disciplines at USA Shooting’s International Shooting Park near Colorado Springs, Colorado. In all, 147 athletes from 46 teams in 21 states competed in the International event, registering for a combined 239 events, a record for the tournament. International Skeet National Champion Trey Wright (Brookline Top Shots/Albany, Georgia) earned special distinction for his win by being invited to be a part of USA Shooting’s National Junior Team. The other two event winners including Hank Garvey (Minute Man Sharpshooters/Newburyport, Massachusetts) in Double Trap and Dustin McGowen (Arkansas Raze Shotgun Team/Greenwood, Arkansas) in Trap already have team status, with Garvey a member on the Junior Team and McGowen a National Team member. Colton Evans (Bridge Creek Clays/Crawford, Georgia) and Katie Jacob (Lake Oconee Shotgun Team/Rochester, Michigan) joined Wright on the Skeet podium. Jesse Haynes-Lewis (Minute Man Sharpshooters/) and William Faeth (Midland University Shotgun Team/) joined Garvey on the Double Trap podium. Two shooters from CTC-Tennessee in Spring Hill earned podium honors alongside McGowen in Trap, including Grant Porter and Caleb Lindsey. The five-day tournament was capped off with an awards ceremony and dinner at the beautiful Cheyenne Mountain Resort. As is traditional, a Shamrock Leathers shooting bag was given to an athlete through random drawing during the banquet. Speakers included Mike Theimer, youth program director for USA Shooting; Myles Walker, newly appointed member to the USA National Team and last year's USA Junior National Team appointee via the SCTP Nationals; Hank Garvey, Jr., last year's SCTP double trap gold medalist and Junior National Team appointee via the SCTP Nationals, and Lloyd Woodhouse, former USA national shotgun coach during six Olympic games. See all the scores and winners. Next year’s SCTP National Championships for International Disciplines are scheduled for July 24–30, 2016. Special thanks to USA Shooting for event reporting and photography. 
Stu Wright is a man on a mission, and that mission is his 32 athletes here competing in the 2015 National Team Championships. Nothing is going to keep him from watching them take a run at the title…not even Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Stu is the head coach of the Pinckneyville Community High School shooting program. The owner of Wright’s, a gun shop he opened in the mid 70’s which caters to the clay target shooter, started his high school coaching career back in 2002 when he was asked to coach the school’s FFA squad. At the time there were just five shooters, enough for a competition squad. Today his program has 32 solid shooters competing in trap, skeet and sporting clays. Here at Nationals he has six seniors who have been with him from between four and seven years, and missing their final run at a national title isn’t something that he’s going to miss. On Thursday, the first day he could get out of bed after chemo, Stu made it to the World Shooting & Recreational Complex to watch his kids compete in sporting clays. He showed up not knowing where they stood or if they even had a chance at a title. When he found out how they were shooting, well, as Stu put it, “there’s no getting me out of here.” Led by senior Andy Opp, who was the only high school team shooter to post a perfect 100 on Wednesday and followed that up with 95 on Thursday to claim the individual High Overall title, PCHS Shooting Sports finished as the first place high school team, with 562, and second place among all teams. That made Thursday a very good day in Stu's book. Five months ago, back on February 6, Stu Wright learned he had cancer. On February 10 Andy and the rest of his team, the coaches and parents got the news, too. “It was rough getting the news but then everybody stepped up,” said Opp in describing how the close knit group took the news. Up until last year Stu Wright was the coach of the team, carrying most all of the responsibility with help from assistant coach Donny Nehring who coached the sporting clays shooters and traveled with the team to major events. But last year there were 22 team shooters and this year there are 32, a big jump for a community of just 2,500. Stu realized he needed help and built a team of assistant coaches for this season. “Now I have four fine guys that picked up the torch,” says Wright. And picking up the torch is exactly what was needed since February. Chemo takes a lot out of a person, even one with the drive and enthusiasm that Stu Wright seems to have an endless supply of. On those days, the bad days as Wright refers to them, he refuses to be around the kids because he doesn’t want his cancer to be their burden. Wright’s motto is ‘Fun With A Gun’ and that’s why he won’t get in the way of his kids’ fun with his cancer. Opp describes his coach as "one of a kind" and says, “Nobody’s going to be like Stu. He’s strict but fun and we always seem to be laughing.” Going into today’s American Trap finals, Stu’s kids, the boys from that small, tight community of Pinckneyville, Illinois, are ahead by 34 targets after breaking a 482 in their quest for the high school team title, making Coach Wright a very happy man. With no hope of hiding his pride in their first day’s performance Stu gushes, “That’s totally over our head.” And then he says of his cancer and recent round of chemo, “I have no side effects. I’m on top of the world and it doesn’t get any better than this.” And that's why there's no stopping Stu Wright.
Carter Kramer only started shooting trap this past October. But the 12 year old from Quincy, Illinois, was already an active hunter. And while he hunted duck, dove and rabbit whenever the opportunity arose, he has fallen hard for those small orange clay disks. “I love it because it’s a challenge,” said Carter about his foray into trap. And it’s a challenge the young shooter continues to rise to. Though very new to trap he has already logged his first 25 straight, and yesterday, armed with a Remington 870 Wingmaster, Carter added another 87 targets to his career total when he and the rest of his Quivering Clays team shot their first 100 of the SCTP American Trap Team Championship. Though his first 50 still alludes him, Carter is determined to reach that next trap milestone and move on to his first 100 straight this year. 
Young athletes like Carter don’t get into trapshooting, and all the way to Sparta, Illinois, and the National Team Championships, without some family support. And for the Kramer family, it’s not just some support but a lot. Carter’s father Dan started shooting clay targets at the age of 9 using an old spring loaded hand trap and is happy to see his oldest son getting into the sport. Younger brother Austin, 10, is ready to join Carter on the shooting line next year while 5 year old brother Kayden is still a couple years away from joining the Kramer squad. The Kramers road tripped south to Sparta in force. Joining dad and the boys are mom, granddad and, of course, grandma Donna Lohmeyer who helps herd the boys when Carter isn’t shooting and the sights and sounds of a bustling national championship venue seem to pull them in every direction all at once. Clearly trapshooting is, indeed, a family event.
A 2013 research report from the National Shooting Sports Foundation entitled Analysis of Sport Shooting Participation in the U.S. 2008-2012 found that not only were new shooters likely to be younger with 66% falling in the 18-to-34-year-old age group, but they were also likely to be female. NSSF’s findings showed that 37% of new target shooters were women. Looking around the grounds of the World Shooting & Recreational Complex in Sparta, Illinois, it’s clear that young women are a fast growing segment of both the Scholastic Clay Target Program and the Scholastic Pistol Program. At this year’s National Team Championships those young ladies with shotguns slung over their shoulders, and those with a pistol tucked away in their range bag, make up 18.4% of the total 2,800-plus athletes in attendance. Among the 2,466 shotgunners they are 17.6% while on the pistol ranges they account for nearly a quarter (24.3%) of the 345 competitors. 
If the broad smiles exhibited during Wednesday night’s Opening Ceremony are any indication, the number of young female athletes participating in the shooting programs of the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation is likely to grow. 
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The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity dedicated to providing shooting-sports education and opportunities to school-age youths around the United States to encourage young athlete personal growth and development.
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