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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Northwest High School students in the Alliance area attending a pep rally Thursday met a team many may not have been aware of.

“And it’s called the Northwest High School Clay Target Team!” an announcer bellowed into the microphone as the students yelled enthusiastically.

Yes, a gun club at a school.

But their club practices competitive clay pigeon shooting at trap and skeet ranges.

“We practice a couple of times a week on the weekends or after school on Thursday or Friday,” said club member Christian Fezatte.

“There were little posters around the school and I saw my friend was like ‘Hey, let’s go to the meeting!'” Said Lucy Henry, one of several female members of the club. “And I was like okay! And we went to the meeting.”

Nearly a dozen clay shooting clubs like this one have popped up in North Texas school districts like Southlake/Carroll, Flower Mound and Argyle. Organizers say they expect the number of clubs in North Texas schools to double or more during the school year.

More at link.

That's great news! Having gone to school in the North we were only allowed to do "archery", if you want to call it that, and it wasn't even a club but a 1 time event in gym class. My 6th grade camp had a .22 rifle range but we were prohibited from doing those activities, including archery, by the school.

The school board got real nasty when someone saw our T-shirt design for senior prom which included a James Bond figure holding a suppressed PPK (Prom was secret agent/007 themed). The school was forced to change the design of the shirt and 007 ended up holding a balloon.

That's one good lookin' announcer dude there, yes he is!

(I'll be signing autographs after the show, for anyone interested!)

Seriously, though, we are definitely proud of our team, and looking forward to this year's season. If any of you have the chance to work with a group of kids in something like this, you'll definitely get a kick out of seeing the next generation of gun owners and shooters!

Wayne

That makes me happy. I wish we had a gun club at my high school.

ajwakeboarder wrote:That makes me happy. I wish we had a gun club at my high school.

Well, if you're a student, why not start one? What our kids did was to find a teacher that was willing to sponsor the club, then got together with other kids and formed the club under school rules. Ask your principal's office which administrator is the liaison for student organizations. Also, look at the "Youth Target Foundation ". That's the umbrella organization that most all schools are affiliating with. They'll help train your coaches (our coaches are two dads of club members who are very experienced shotgun game competitors), help with organization and funding, as well as putting on several competitions during the Spring.

If you can find a teacher that might be interested in acting as a sponsor, I'll be more than happy to talk with them to help explain how we got things going at Northwest HS.

Wayne

(Though I wasn't the original sponsoring teacher, I volunteered to help shortly after the team got going, and took over when the original teacher had to drop out to concentrate on her Master's degree classes. I'm now a co-sponsor with one of our softball coaches)

n5wd wrote:
Well, if you're a student, why not start one? What our kids did was to find a teacher that was willing to sponsor the club, then got together with other kids and formed the club under school rules. Ask your principal's office which administrator is the liaison for student organizations. Also, look at the "Youth Target Foundation ". That's the umbrella organization that most all schools are affiliating with. They'll help train your coaches (our coaches are two dads of club members who are very experienced shotgun game competitors), help with organization and funding, as well as putting on several competitions during the Spring.

If you can find a teacher that might be interested in acting as a sponsor, I'll be more than happy to talk with them to help explain how we got things going at Northwest HS.

Wayne

(Though I wasn't the original sponsoring teacher, I volunteered to help shortly after the team got going, and took over when the original teacher had to drop out to concentrate on her Master's degree classes. I'm now a co-sponsor with one of our softball coaches)

I was thinking in the past tense. I graduated 6 years ago from Keller no less. I had several friends graduate from Northwest. The closest we got to guns was the ROTC program. We got to use demilled M1 Garands for our honor guards. I even asked the Major why the ROTC group couldn't have a marksmanship event at our competitions. But, I never got an answer.

ajwakeboarder wrote:

n5wd wrote:
Well, if you're a student, why not start one? What our kids did was to find a teacher that was willing to sponsor the club, then got together with other kids and formed the club under school rules. Ask your principal's office which administrator is the liaison for student organizations. Also, look at the "Youth Target Foundation ". That's the umbrella organization that most all schools are affiliating with. They'll help train your coaches (our coaches are two dads of club members who are very experienced shotgun game competitors), help with organization and funding, as well as putting on several competitions during the Spring.

If you can find a teacher that might be interested in acting as a sponsor, I'll be more than happy to talk with them to help explain how we got things going at Northwest HS.

Wayne

(Though I wasn't the original sponsoring teacher, I volunteered to help shortly after the team got going, and took over when the original teacher had to drop out to concentrate on her Master's degree classes. I'm now a co-sponsor with one of our softball coaches)

I was thinking in the past tense. I graduated 6 years ago from Keller no less. I had several friends graduate from Northwest. The closest we got to guns was the ROTC program. We got to use demilled M1 Garands for our honor guards. I even asked the Major why the ROTC group couldn't have a marksmanship event at our competitions. But, I never got an answer.

Ah, yeah, it would be a little late for you, now. But if you run into any of the kids that ARE interested, at the range, or Cabelas and such, be sure to encourage them to give it a try!

Outstanding!