Shooting boosters hoping to launch clay pigeon team

A new group of shooting enthusiasts has formed in Wrangell with the intent of forming a competitive trapshooting group for local youth.

Friends of the NRA – referring to the National Rifle Association, a gun rights advocacy group – is its own nonprofit group with chapters located around the country. State committees raise money for the NRA Foundation, which in turn allocates half of all net proceeds back to the state of origin. In the form of grants, these funds then go toward programming and projects related to shooting sports. Since its start in 1992, the group has held nearly 20,000 events and raised $740 million.

In Southeast Alaska, Friends of the NRA committees already operate in Juneau, Prince of Wales Island, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Haines, Cordova and Sitka. Wrangell’s will be the latest addition, with its committee to be chaired by retired police officer Terry Courson.

Member Reme Privett explained the focus of the local group will be to access grant funds to start up a trapshooting team that can compete with neighboring communities. In trapshooting, participants take aim at clay pigeons launched from a “house” or machine, using shotguns. This differs from more complex forms of clay pigeon-related shooting competition, such as skeet shooting – which uses two houses – and sporting clays.

An Olympic sport, trapshooting leagues can be found across the country. Privett explained Petersburg already has a competitive youth team, the Devil’s Thumb Shooters. If Wrangell were to add the needed facilities at its own shooting range and attract a designated coach, he said it could cultivate its own team that could potentially help form a regional league.

“You’ve got the facility already there, you just need a few upgrades,” commented Greg Stephens, senior field representative for NRA Field Operations in South Alaska. It was with his encouragement that the Wrangell committee has been formed, with its first fundraising dinner planned for this Saturday at the Nolan Center.

While Wrangell already has the Stikine Sportsmen Association, a homegrown club which raises money for various sporting activities, Privett explained that involvement with the Friends of the NRA organization could open up the community to additional sources of grant funding. Already the NRA Foundation has funded the youth shooting team in Petersburg in past years, and Stephens said the last two have seen around $30,000 go to the POW committee for new ranges and shooting facilities.

Privett explained the local committee’s priority will be to start up a shooting team for the high school, with a new house, and possibly shotguns, targets and ammo. In future though, the group would like to see the start of hunter safety courses and educational opportunities, and perhaps improve shotgun facilities at the Spur Road shooting range.

Volunteers have been selling tickets for Saturday’s fundraiser dinner, with tickets available at the Bay Company, Stikine Inn and Angerman’s. At the Stikine Inn, raffle tickets for three different firearms are also being sold, to be drawn in a “reload” type of fashion. This means winning tickets will get tossed back into the barrel, with the potential to win again.

Privett and Stephens both emphasized that funds going to the NRA Foundation are not used for the NRA’s political lobbying, which is handled separately. Foundation funds are dedicated to cultivating shooting sports, law enforcement training, hunter education and other such programming.