After having 24 hours to defrost and dry out, I am filling out the last of the paperwork to close our second annual junior highpower clinic. The clinic was held at the Reading Rifle and Revolver Club in Reading, Massachusetts. We had a total of 27 juniors both male and female ranging in age from 14 to 19 on the firing line.

We started the clinic with a half day of instruction and safety briefings for all attending. Mike Schunemann and Kevin Trickett went over rifles, ammo, scoring, safety, positions, equipment and some history of the sport. A lot of which was first hand experience of the sport and different ranges and matches.

The juniors finished up with a walk out to the 200, 300 and 600 yard lines with Mike and Duane. It is always refreshing to see their faces as they walk out on the 600 yard line and ask if we really do shoot from there. To bad we didn’t have a 1000 yard range, which would have been really impressive.

The following Sunday we had a full day of shooting planned rain or shine. Unfortunately it was more on the cold damp side. Every two juniors were assigned to one coach for the entire day. They went to the line, the pits and to lunch with their coaches. On the line we had seven targets running with four relays. So that the coaches did not have to distract themselves from the shooter, we had several support staff behind the line teaching scoring and also as an extra pair of eyes for safety.

It was a great sight to see all of these experience coaches, all of which were masters or high-masters working with these new shooters. This was impressive, but not as much as the fact that several of the coaches were father and son, husband and wife and mother and son. This shows that the sport of shooting can and is a family affair.

Despite the weather we were all very impressed at the scores that were shot. The only thing that amazed me more was the amount of food that some of the kids consumed.

Mike talked over and over to the kids about safety and the importance of it especially in high-power and shooting out doors. We had one junior to which we were all very much impressed by, try the offhand position and told the coach it is to heavy I cannot hold it still, I do not think it would be safe for me to fire in this position at this time. Now that took more than talent to admit this. We as adults can learn a lot from these kids, sometimes.

Each relay had time to warm up in the pits and pull targets. The pits are a great place for the coaches to tell all their war stories and then some. Joann taught them all very well what to do and they all did very well, better than some of the adults she told them. If Joann tells you that you did well, you really did well. She is one of the best pit bosses around and complement from her is as good as gold.

Before awards both coaches and juniors had to fill out a comments sheet. No cookies could be had if the sheets were not turned in. I had all the sheets back in record time. Amazing how fast the coaches could write! The comments we received have given us great ideas of how to improve the clinic for next year. We closed the day with a small awards ceremony and handed out all of our CMP certificates to all of our new high-power juniors.

Despite the cold we had a great time and many cannot wait to shoot again, a true sign of a high-power shooter. To view additional photos, visit http://www.massrifle.com/2007_HP_Clinic_Juniors.htm.