Pat "Sandbagger"Steiger sent me a really nice email (as well as many other good friends that attend our match) and suggested that I write a book about the 21 years that we have hosted this match. I am going to get Jerry to post his moments on this thread as well as ask y'all to post your memories of the Southern Nationals.

I am going to post memories form each year as I have so many great memories and I will post them by year so that I can let everyone know how we progressed and grew each year as well as getting my post count up! I will start to post tomorrow with my 1991 memories. Put on your thinking caps and be prepared to either laugh, cry or just plain don't give a rat's ass! I am interested in other competitors thoughts and look forward to this thread!

1. 2 X 4 rifle......only "special shirt" I earned at the Southern Nationals.
2. Not at Winnsboro, but the last LA. State SB Match at Shreveport, driving through the protestors. I have never been to a protest with signs with lots of angry people and news cameras. Enjoyed that match and especially enjoyed getting away with out any problems or damage.
3. The fantastic treatment by the Winnsboro club, wonderful reception by the people of Winnsboro, and all the effort by David and your cohorts are the highlights for my visits over these years.

C-Ya,
Charlie

1991 Memories

After Jerry and I had attended a few state championships on Shreveport, Waco and Houston; we decided to try and host a state championship in Winnsboro as the Shreveport Club was closing and they did not want to try and host a match. Jerry and I wanted to hold a match like one we would most likely attend and we stole ideas from Houston. We had 38 competitors that first year and thought that we had made the Big Time! We had duck gumbo on Friday night and a one day match on Saturday. My most memorable moments from this match are me beating Fenton Sandlin in a shoot-off for 1st in AA Sporter Class and Robert Massey winning the State Title in both guns and having to change to starched clothes to have his photo taken. Everyone in our Gun Club thought this was the funniest thing that they had ever seen! After the match, a lot of the shooters went out to eat, but Jerry stayed at the club in two lounge chairs with the remaining beer (Coors was our sponsor that year and we had cases instead of tap beer) and tried to drink it all until some Texas shooters came back and drove each of us home! The match was in August and it was HOT! This was Gabby Jones's debut to our area and he has not shut up talking or coming to our match each year!

1992

The second year of our match brought out Troy Lawton from Georgia. At that time Troy was the only shooter to shoot a perfect 40/40 in a registered match at the NRA Nationals in Ft. Worth, Texas. Troy came in on Thursday to have a full day of practice and to figure out the range particulars regarding wind, etc. We had only 6 banks of animals at that time and used railroad cross ties for back stops. The backstops were 5 feet tall and we placed butcher paper on them between matches. We grew to 48 shooters that year!

Jerry and I were worried about Troy wining the truck that we had insured for a perfect score as Troy shot four practice matches on Friday by the clock and shot 3 40/40 scores. Fortunately the wind came up on Saturday and Troy was not able to shoot a 40/40 in either rifle and the truck was safe!

As a side note, we had insured the truck in a cooperative effort with White Ford, Lincoln Mercury as an incentive to get shooters to attend our match. That was also the first year that William Zander attended with several new shooters from Texas thanks to the free publicity from Robert Massey about the good food and fun.

That is the main thing I remember about 1992 and maybe Jerry can add something worthwhile!

I hope to post some memories from each year daily. This should take up three weeks and also get my post count up! If you have a specific year, please wait and post during that particular year's post to keep me from really messing up!

Reading in the wings and waiting oh great Ducky.

Innocent

Oh Oh....looks like a road trip is in the making......Cant miss this one.

Keep up the yearly postings, me being a new guy to the arena I really like hearing about all this stuff. Great work, hope to meet ya this comming year!

Thanks and Jerry is going to post some of his greatest memories also. I may have to move on to 1993 earlier and then to 1994 as I will be out of town those two days.

1993

Okay for 1993, this was a really good year and truly memorable.

Troy Lawton had called Jerry and wanted to know what color the Ford truck was! It was blue and was at the Club for the match. Troy came in two days early to practice for the truck that year. Jerry and I intentionally placed Troy (with Robert Massey spotting) to finish the first match on turkeys! The day started out with perfect weather and we were worried that Troy would win the truck. He ran Rams, Chickens and then Pigs. I was shooting in the match at that time as we only had 55 shooters and it was not too big to be unmanageable and also shoot. Jerry was spotting for me on the adjacent bank to Troy so Jerry had a perfect view of the match. I did not ever see Troy hit an animal as I was shooting, but Jerry would tell me after each set of five animals that we were going to be giving away the truck. He said that every shot by Troy was almost centered on the animals so we called Mr. Owen White, the Ford dealer, to come to the range and be ready to present the truck to Troy! While Troy was shooting his first five Turkeys on the last really of match 1, he and Massey were as tuned in to conditions as anyone ever has been according to Jerry. I do know that Troy made two scope adjustments during the first five animals and finished with 35/35 going into his last five Turkeys of the match. I am sure that everyone that was not shooting or spotting was behind the firing line and you could have heard a pin drop. Troy shot the first four Turkeys with good body shots and I do not think that I hit a turkey! He shot the last Turkey with about 45 seconds left on the clock and everyone started screaming and yelling until Kelly Martin, Match Announcer, reminded everyone that there were still shooters on the line! Robert Massey asked me to not send the target setters down range as he knew which Turkey was the last one hit, so we walked down to get the turkey and present it to Troy. It was DEAD CENTER of the Turkey and Troy kept in in the truck as long as he owned it!

I am sure that there were other memories from that match, but it is truly the match that put Winnsboro Gun Club on the map for holding a pretty good match.

1994

After Troy Lawton won the truck in 1993, we could not even get anything insured for a perfect 40/40, 80/80 or even a 160/160! Jerry and I then decided to put our Ducks Unlimited Committee knowledge to use as we knew that we had to have something special to attract shooters to our match. We got a few more sponsors at the SHOT Show and also secured funding from the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism. We had a Cochon De Lait (suckling pig roast) for our Friday evening opening meal and went to a two-day match. Dennis Glasscock from Jacksonville, Florida informed us that we would have a bigger attendance with t two-day match and he was correct as we had about 75 shooters from as far away as Washington with Dennis Martinen in attendance. Fred Trappey represented the Louisiana Department of Tourism and was our first Louisiana state-wide representative to see all of our guests.

The most memorable part of this match is that my oldest daughter Melissa decided to start shooting and Jerry spotted and coached her. She did extremely well and even broke out of B Class by shooting a AA score and not winning the B Class Championship. I was more proud of that than any other time in my shooting career before or since as it showed true sportsmanship and class. Jerry and I had seen too much sandbagging and did not want her to be accused of that!

Troy Lawton won Standard Rifle and Lee O'Neil from Colorado won the Hunter Rifle Championship. Melissa won Third A class after a shoot-off for Match II and finished in the middle of the pack for Aggregate in A Class!

One other thing that comes to mind is that Alice Shaw made homemade peach cobblers for the Friday dinner to go with Kelly Martin's homemade ice cream. Robert Massey did not get any cobbler when he went through the line and went to get some, but the last pan was totally cleaned out! Robert spotted my Mother with about a teaspoon on cobbler on a plate and he tried to steal it from her! I think his actual words were,"Lady are you going to eat that cobbler?" Needless to say, his reputation as Masshole was secured then!

Awesome!!! Gotta love the truck story, especially how nobody had the guts to insure ya after the fact.

Anyone else recognize the irony of the last Southern Nationals being the .22nd Annual? Hmmmmm Coincidence?

Dee

Don't want to interrupt David and Jerry's year by year recap, but I'll a bit. Too many memories to put in print, butpriceless jewels in the tapestry of life non the less....I remember it being 109 on the firing line and having to wipe sweat off the stock between shots....Mini Kitty's first in a row pin came from Winnsboro...one very special memory is of Mallory mentioning to David this past year that her scorecards had Mallory instead of Mini Kitty printed on them..within minutes David had reprinted the cards to a 12 year old's satisfaction....took time to make a young shooter feel special...BTW it was David who dubbed me "Kitty" a nickname that certainly doestn't fit the frame but one that has stuck and always will.....And I'll always remember the rain from year to year that would turn the parking and walking areas into a muddy quagmire, often with hilarious results....The "Democrats" who set up the tents and kept everything ship shape were always memorable...and I got a big kick out of some of our friends from, shall we say "more liberal" states looking on in wonder as they got to see first hand for the first time real convict labor....and a memory that I'll always get a good laugh out of is the time when persons herein un-named moveed Pat Stiger's tent waaay out in the parking lot...somehow Pat thought I was the culprit even though my only involvement was taking a picture of those behind the great tent migration bent over mooning the camera...do a search, it's on here somewhere....and when Pat "decorated" the only Razorback tent there thinking it was mine in good natured retaliation and it wasn't mine....now that's funny, I don't care who you are...Hard to believe folks that when we say our goodbyes this time it will be for the last time on a campus that a lot of us got our advanced degrees in silhouette shooting on...sadly, this will be our last homecoming.

Kitty.

1991--I, as did David mentioned, remember Robert Massey as a highlight. My wife brought to my attention the man changing shirts (starched and ironed) and checking himself in the mirror of his vehicle, to make sure he was presentable to receive his first place trophey. (This was in the days before bibbed overalls, also pre Joanne, which meant he had a good looking young thing at his side) This was truly unique.

After the match David and I, just had to sit down, relax, and bask in the glory of pulling off something we weren't quite sure would come off as we planned, but it did. Dehydration from a long hot day, exhiliration from a successful match (from our viewpoint), and lots of ice cold beer contributed to the last time I've ever had to be driven home (but I'm not sure about David).

Also it was probably a first and last when the "ditty bags" contained a can of pork and beans.

As in good wines 1991 was a great year for Winnsboro Gun Club.

Jerry