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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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Newletter Editors: Deadman & Mesquite Millie Website Editor: Tennessee Justice |
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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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Newletter Editors: Deadman & Mesquite Millie Website Editor: Tennessee Justice |
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Volume 2, Issue No. 4 (Web Edition) April 2004 |
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Traditional 1. Diamondback Dennis 2. Dustin Clays 3. Cruel Hand Luke 49er 1. Marshal Too Tall 2. Ocoee Red 3. Double Eagle Cowgirl 1. Carolina Gem 2. Summer Dove 3. Hixon Vixen Junior 1. Dandy Diamond 2. Jericho Gunfighter 1. Pleasant Modern 1. Limp Along Charlie 2. Sundance McNeyman 3. Awful Close Classic 1. Cherokee Mad Dog Black Powder 1. the Catoosa Kid Senior 1. Dustin Clays 2. Tabasco JOT 3. Calibre .45 Duelist 1. Tinker Chapley 2. Horseshoe John 3. TN Tombstone Buffalo Shoot 22 cal – Marshal Too Tall Buffalo Shoot Long Range – Slingin Dunn How Do I Become An Ocoee Ranger? Several cowboys & cowboys have recently asked, “How Do I Join The Ocoee Rangers, And What Are The Dues?” Here’s the answer, and it’s simple. There are no dues. If you are a safe shooter, enjoy shooting, come to Ocoee Ranger monthly shoots, and consider yourself to be an Ocoee Ranger, then you are one. You pay $10 to shoot, just like every other shooter. That’s it. It’s that simple. A lot of us wear an Ocoee Ranger badge that has our Alias, sort’a like a nametag so folks can see who we are if they can’t remember us or so we can remember who were are if we have senior moments and can’t remember our name. It also identifies us as Ocoee Rangers when we go to other shoots. Badges are not required, but you can order one, if you want one. The badge costs $55, which includes the badge and mailing. It looks good, and it shines, thanks to Horseshoe John. (When we selected a design for the badge, ol’ Horseshoe John kept saying, “I want a shiny badge. It is.) It costs a little, but it’s very well made, and it has a good locking system so it won’t fall off your shirt or blouse or vest. If you want one, see Mesquite Millie at the next shoot and get an order form. You can also contact Tri. He’s the cowboy who orders the badges. If you’re a Bradley County, Tennessee resident you might want to join the Cleveland Hunting Rifle & Pistol Club, our sponsor. To do so, you’ll need to have a club member to sponsor you. If you want to join the CHRPC, contact Ocoee Red, Sundance McNeyman, Double Eagle, or Tri and ask them to sponsor you. There are other Ocoee Rangers who are members of the CHRPC, but contacts with these fellers will get you started. The money from Ocoee Ranger shoots, after expenses from our monthly shoots (painting the targets, supplies for the newsletter, etc.) go to the Cleveland Hunting Rifle and Pistol Club. When we started, the CHRPC provided about $7,000 for us to use to buy targets, timers, etc. Things we need as we go, we request funding from the CHRPC. The funds we submit to the CHRPC are used to maintain the range, and to make improvements like the upgrade of pistol range 3 and other work. So, if you’re a cowboy or cowgirl who wants to be an Ocoee Ranger, welcome aboard. Be safe, have fun, and help do the work in your posse during shoots. And if you have an occasional free Friday on range set-up day, come out and help Horseshoe John and his set-up gang. They’ll think you’re great for helping them, and so will the cowfolk who can’t get off from work to help. The Future Of Cowboy Action Shooting & Individual Ownership Of Firearms Depends On Shooters Like These Young April Shooters
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Newletter Editors: Deadman & Mesquite Millie Website Editor: Tennessee Justice |
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