T=Traditional   M=Modern   D=Duelist   GF=Gunfighter   SR=Senior   F=Female   CL=Classic   BPC=Black Powder Cartridge   CH=Challenged   JR=Junior   49er=49er Names in Bold Red Shot The Whole Match Without a Miss

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Volume 2, Issue No. 1                                           (Web Edition)                                          April  2004

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70 SHOOTERS BLAST TARGETS AT APRIL SHOOT

    Turnout at the April shoot was very good.  70 shooters strapped on their six-guns and participated.  Several were new shooters, or relatively new shooters.  Take heart cowfolks.  The next shoot won’t be either as long or as confusing.  We’ll shoot only 5 stages, leaving out the flying target shotgun stage, and there won’t be the confusion with having to remember so many target combinations.  Ol’ T-Bone will have a good shoot, like he usually does, but he’ll make it a bit easier to remember what to shoot next.  Also, next time we’ll have a Senior Statesman Category for Shooters age 70 and above.

What happened at the shoot?  Well, Diamondback Dennis was the Top Gun of the Day.  His better half, Carolina Gem, was the top cowgirl shooter. She also placed 11th overall.    Dustin Clays and Cruel Hand Luke both shot perfect matches with no misses.  Awful Close had a challenging day.  His “challenges” started at the Buffalo Shoot, before the match.  He put a wrong caliber cartridge in his rifle, and locked it up.  The gun was disassembled, and when he was reassembling it, he put a wrong screw in the wrong place, and tried to force it when it wouldn’t fit.  That created a real problem.  Then in the match, he had timer problems when shooting a stage.  Given a re-shoot for that stage, he managed to get a stage disqualification.  After the shoot, while sitting in the clubhouse

Awful Close Top Dancer
Diamondback Dennis Top Gun

telling about his tribulations, he was attacked by a honeybee.  When it hit the floor, he did a tap dance, squashing the bee, which would have been the envy of any stage performer.  But on the good side, he placed 3rd in the Modern category.

Out on the Range

Honest Charlie & Sunflower Shooting Winchesters While Ocoee Red Times & Says, “Wow!”

Before the shoot started, Lightning McCoy had a little magical ceremony to prepare him to compete.  He pulled out a new pair of real live Colt Single Action revolvers.  And they looked real nifty.  Unable to get the grips off, he enlisted the aid of a cowboy with the magic touch, Rawhide Rex.  With a twist of a screwdriver and a thump with his finger at just the right place, off popped the grip panel.  When this word-scratcher walked away, the process was being observed by Silver Dust, who had been absent so long that we feared he’d died, or worse, moved to New Jersey. 

In general, all the shooters did very well.  12 shooters shot 5 clean stages.  2 shooters shot 6 clean stages. 6 shooters missed only 1 shot.  Tinker Chapley placed 1st, for the 1st time, in the Duelist category.  Dandy Diamond was 1st in the Junior category. All in all, it was a very good day, with an excellent group of cowgirl and cowboy shooters and guests.

The Top 10 Shooters were:  (1) Diamondback Dennis (2) Dustin Clays (3) Cruel Hand Luke (4) Marshal Too Tall

(5) Tabasco JOT (6) Pleasant (7) Ocoee Red (8) Cool Waters (9) Double Eagle (10) Unpleasant

Next Shoot – May 22 … Register beginning 8:30 am Eastern Time …  Safety Meeting 10:00 am …. Shooting  follows

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

o        RANGE SET-UP GANG:  HORSESHOE JOHN, LINC & DOUBLE EAGLE FOR SETTING UP THE RANGE ON FRIDAY.   HORSESHOE JOHN NEEDS HELP TO SET UP IN MAY… 2 OF HIS CREW WILL BE AWAY ON VACATION.   IF YOU CAN HELP SETTING UP THE RANGE, PLEASE DO SO. 

THEY START AT NOON.

o        POSSE LEADERS:  DOUBLE EAGLE, DUSTIN CLAYS, HORSESHOE JOHN, OCOEE RED, PLEASANT

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Volume 2, Issue No. 4                                          (Web Edition)                                          April 2004

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The Reel West, The Real West & The West Of Our Imagination

The Reel West  – CHUCK CONNERS

Chuck Conners is best remembered as television’s Lucus McCain, The Rifleman.  In that role, he played a fast shootin’ rancher, widowed father of a young son, and friend of the town marshal.  That was back in the days when there were so many Westerns on TV that some shows used gimmick guns to attract viewers. Chuck’s gimmick was a slicked up 1892 Winchester with a big loop lever …. ah la John Wayne.  His gun had a screw protruding from the lever, which allowed the rifle to fire when the lever was closed, without having to pull the trigger.  Chuck could shoot the rifle pretty fast, and with the camera speeded up, he was Really Fast.  In later years he played other Western roles, some as good guys and some as villains.  He was especially good as a villain.  He could make evil ooze out just like sweat on a hot day.  But his most unusual role was that of Geronimo.  Yeah, you heard right.  Geronimo.  The movie started with a close up of Chuck’s face …. brown like an Apache …..  with black hair like an Apache …. wearing a hair style like an Apache …. and with the bluest eyes you ever saw …. like no Apache who ever lived.  But what the heck, that was Holly wood of the ‘60’s.  I don’t remember much about the movie, other than the beginning.

In an interview once, Chuck was asked how he got the role of The Rifleman.

Chuck Conners as the Rifleman, with Johnny Crawford

as his son

He said that when he went in to talk with the casters about the role, the first thing they did was throw the rifle straight to him, with no warning.  He reached out and caught it with 1 hand. All the other people who were trying for the role used 2 hands to catch the rifle.  He handled it naturally ….  like a fast shootin’ rifleman would.  Of course he had plenty of practice catching with 1 hand …. Bats.  Before his movie career, Chuck Conners was a professional baseball player.  How about that?

The West of our imagination  ….  THE KENESAW KID

The Kenesaw Kid started Cowboy Shooting in Knoxville … 2 … no 3 … well, sometime a little over 3 years ago.  That’s how the conversation went when this word scratcher asked the question.  It took 3 cowboys to try to reconstruct when he started.  You see, all 3 of them had a good bit of gray in their hair, them what had hair, and their memories had to be sort’a jiggled a bit. 

How did he get into Cowboy Shooting?  He had been shooting IPSC and the fun had gone out of it.  It was way too serious.  Then one day, some cowboy invited him to a Knoxville Cowboy Shoot.  Kenesaw said, “I fell in love with it immediately.”  But he can’t remember who invited him to the shoot.  Remember the comments about memories and gray hair?  Well, he got into Cowboy Shooting and is now a devoted SASS Cowboy.  When selecting an alias, he thought, and thought, and decided to use the name of his business: Kenesaw Creative ….. and the Kenesaw Kid was born.

the Kenesaw Kid

Now this nosey word scratcher had  to ask, “What do you shoot?”  Kenesaw smiled and said, “Well, it depends on which guns I bring.  Sometimes I shoot .38’s, and sometimes I shoot .45’s.”  Let’s close on the mention of .45’s.

Frank Canton

The Real west  … FRANK CANTON

In 1880, Frank Canton was a small rancher and sheriff in Johnson County, WY. Then In 1892, he sided with the big ranchers and became a co-leader of an invading force of gun-slingers that attempted to wipe out small ranchers and “rustlers” in Johnson County: the invaders had to be rescued by the US Army to keep the locals from killing the entire force.  Later, Frank drifted back down into Oklahoma Territory and became a Deputy US Marshal. He left there and went to Alaska as a Deputy US Marshal, and then back to Oklahoma again.  In fact he became so renown a lawman that when Oklahoma became a state, he was appointed the 1st   Adjutant General.  Sounds like he was a real straight arrow, doesn’t it?  Well, here’s the rest of the story.

Frank Canton wasn’t really Frank Canton.  He was born Joe Horner near Richmond, VA.  He and his family went to Texas, following the War of Northern Aggression, and he

and his brother became cowboys.  In 1874, he killed a soldier in a saloon fight, and after that, he became a Texas frontier criminal for several years.  When he left the southwest and headed north, Joe Horner ceased to exist, and Frank Canton took his place.

Late in his life, Frank was pardoned by the State of Texas for the transgressions of his youth.  Frank Canton died in 1927. He was 78 years old.

OCOEE RANGERS CONTACTS

Ocoee Red … (423) 476-5303  ocoeered@bellsouth.net  … Pleasant  .. (423) 476-6865  pleasant2@charter.net  ..

Deadman & Mesquite Millie  .. (770) 889-0934  jedalton@mindspring.com 

Horseshoe John .. (706) 866-5372  djlott@bellsouth.net  ..  Tri .. (423) 479-4450  adkissonjc@yahoo.com …

Sundance .. (423) 479-8465  JSNEYMAN@aol.com

THE OCOEE RANGER  Newsletter Staff:   Deadman & Mesquite Millie

NEXT SHOOT – MAY 22

Registration begins 8:30 am Eastern Time – Safety Meeting at 10:00 am – Then we Shoot.

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Volume 2, Issue No. 1                                           (Web Edition)                                         January  2004

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TOP TEN SHOOTERS

Top Gun – Cruel Hand Luke – Top Gun

Tabasco JOT

Sunshine Billy

Pleasant

Blayde Hollister

Marshall Too Tall

Fiddleback

Horseshoe John

Whiskey River Nelson

T-Bone Angus

OCOEE RANGER BADGES

If you want an Ocoee Ranger badge and haven’t ordered yours yet, the badge will cost $58.50.  Contact Tri to order the badge.  His contact info is listed on the Contact page.  The badge looks good and is very well made, and it would look great on your shirt, vest or blouse – depending on whether you’re a cowboy or cowgirl.

SHOOT THROUGH PASSES FOR OCOEE RANGERS SHOOTS

Got a commitment you can’t get out of?  Get a “Shoot Through” pass from Mesquite Millie or Deadman, when you register to shoot.  When you get to the first stage, give your posse leader your shoot through pass (your special scoring sheet), and the posse leader will let you shoot early in the stage.  Then take your “Shoot Through Pass”, and go to another stage.  That way, you can shoot a complete match.  And you can take as much or as little time as you need to have a fun shoot and still meet your commitment.

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Volume 1, Issue No. 8                                           (Web Edition)                                           October 2003

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The reel West, the real West and the West of our imagination

THE REEL WEST Randolph Scott

When this word slinger was a pup, he had 2 Western movie heroes: Randolph Scott and Audie Murphy, in that order.  Randolph Scott was the essential Western movie hero. He rode tall in the saddle, because he was tall.  He was from Virginia, so he sounded like a cowboy, or at least what a cowboy was supposed to sound like.  And he made a bunch of cowboy movies, among others.  And most of them were very good.  Stuff like Man in the Saddle, The Gunfighters,

Trail Street, Ride Lonesome, The Tall T, Western Union and many others.  John Wayne produced one of Randy’s movies, Seven Men From Now, and then wished he’d played the lead himself.

Randy’s last movie was a Western, and one that aficionados of Western movies recognize as a classic, Ride the High Country.  In it, he and Joel McCrea played aging Westerners as the Old West was passing into history.  It was also Joel’s last picture. Both were classy cowboys, and both ended their careers with this good ol’out of doors action Western. If you’re ever at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Museum in Oklahoma City, you’ll see Randolph Scott’s picture in the Western movie area.  Joel McCrea’s picture is also there.

THE WEST OF OUR IMAGINATION

Tellico

Some folks say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  If so, then this photo tells it all.  Tellico, who hangs his spurs in Tellico Plains, TN, has been a Cowboy Shooter for many years.  In fact, he has one of the old style SASS badges, and it has No. 3482 on it.  How about that?  Especially now that there are more than 50,000 SASS members.  Tellico started shootin’ with us in the early days at Guns & Stuff, before the  Tellico in vest & neck-tie move to the Cleveland range.  He said that he’d been priced

out of the cowboy shootin’ group that he had been with.  That group “evolved” to the point that anyone who wasn’t shootin’ real Colt six-shooters wasn’t welcome.  Being’s how he was shootin’ Rugers, he saddled up and moseyed along.

When Tellico started shootin’ with many of us southeastern TN / north GA cowboys and cowgirls, he used a .45 -.70 Sharps reproduction rifle in the Buffalo Shoots before the match.  He usually shot last, because sometimes his Buffalo gun would make the target unusable after he finished shootin’, sometimes before he finished shootin’.  His Sharps was the first one that many of us had seen.  He also was the first continuous user of a bird’s head pistol grip on one of his six-guns.

In the world in which he makes his livin’, Tellico is a Trout rancher, or wrangler, or rustler.  Anyway, he herds fish.  Recently a wise acre of a cowboy asked him how one branded a fish.  Without missing a beat, Tellico replied, “Use a cold brand, and put it behind his ear.”

THE REAL WEST

John Chisum

The name John Chisum is very well know by Western movie fans, folks with an interest in Western history, and Cowboy Action Shooters.  But did you know that John Chisum was a Tennessee boy?  That’s right, John was originally from Madison County, TN.  But he went west to achieve fame and fortune.  John eventually became a cattleman and in the mid 1800’s moved a herd of about 900 cattle from Texas to New Mexico.  In 1873 he founded his “South Springs Ranch” near Roswell, NM.  Although owning only about 40 acres where his house and the water / springs were,  he ran cattle on about 100 miles of open range and became a John Chisum

sure enough “cattle king”.  John was one of the many players who became involved in what became known as “the Lincoln County War”, a local economic war between factions fighting to do the kind of business each wanted to do.  It just happened that John and his friends, John Tunstall and Alex Mc Sween, weren’t ruthless or crooked enough to win the war against the other fellers:  Jimmy Dolan and Lawrence G. Murphy.   John’s role was that of providing capital, at times sanctuary to some of the warriors, and moral support.  For although he is widely known as a Western figure and was stunningly portrayed by John Wayne in the movie Chisum, the real John Chisum didn’t carry a six-gun and didn’t do any physical fighting in “the Lincoln County War.”  Folks like Billy “the Kid” Bonney, Charlie Bowdre and others did that.

In the end, John lost most of his wealth because of his involvement in the Lincoln County affair.  He died of cancer in 1884, three years after Billy “the Kid” Bonney was killed.  John left only a fraction of his once vast empire, but that estate was valued at $500,000.  For you cowboys who ain’t never seen that many zeros and can’t count that high, that’s a half a million bucks.  Not bad for a Tennessee cowboy, huh?

Buenos dias, amigos.

Newletter Editors:  Deadman & Mesquite Millie                  Website Editor:  Tennessee Justice

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