Volume 1, Issue No. 6                                           (Web Edition)                                               August  2003

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A LOT OF COWBOYS & COWGIRLS SHOT AUGUST OCOEE RANGERS SHOOT-OUT

     By afternoon’s end, it was hotter than…well, the Rev. Adam Jones would have said it was real hot.  So, that’s good enough for me.  How could you tell it was hot?  Well, the Rev had his Derby hat pushed back on his head to cool his forehead, and he was minus his coat.  And the shootin’ was hot, too.  Cool Waters was the Top Gun of the day, although the tie-breaking measurement (total time) had to be used between he and Dustin Clays, who finished 2nd. Four cowgirls competed with the cowboys. And… Drum roll!  Chickamauga Clint shot his first Perfect Match.  

He didn’t miss a single target.  That’s not bad, considering he had to hit two flying charcoal briquettes with his shotgun.

Chickamauga Clint Shoots Perfect Match

     It’s sort of ironic that T-Bone wrote his scenarios with two Ocoee Rangers in mind.  Ocoee Red had said that he would like some stages with movement in them, and T-Bone wanted to honor Tennessee Jake by using his alias in a stage.  What happened? Both Ocoee Red and Tennessee Jake had to miss the shoot.  Oh well, the thought was there. 

THERE BE COWGIRLS ON THE RANGE

L – R:  Dixie Land Delite & Summer Dove

L – R:  Two Dogs Runnin’ & Flossie

Daughter & Mother

Thanks to the following:

Range Set-Up Volunteers

Horseshoe John – Limp Along Charlie – Linc – Double Eagle

Posse Leaders

Author of Scenarios

T-Bone Angus – Drinking Water – Tri – Tellico

Buffalo Shoot Honchos

Marshal Too Tall – Tri

CAUTION

Please keep your eye protection on when you’re on the range…even during lunch.  The Rev. Adam Jones, Col. Allison & their shootin’ pardners were eating lunch near the target shack.  Someone (not a cowboy shooter) was using one of the rifle ranges and a piece of shrapnel from the rifle range came very close to them.  So…always protect your eyes.  Keep you glasses on anytime you’re on the range.

SHOOT RESULTS

Traditional

Duelist

Cool Waters

Horseshoe John

Dustin Clays

Owlhoot Hardin

Diamondback Dennis

Cactus Red

Modern

Black Powder

Jack Rabbit Bob

Catoosa Kid

Limp Along Charlie

T-Bone Anugs

Sundance McNeyman

Cowgirl

Senior

Summer Dove

Kenesaw Kid

Dixie Land Delite

Tobasco JOT

Flossie

Outrider

Gunfighter

Buffalo Shoot

Pleasant

(Open Sight)  Tri

Keystone

(PeepSight)  Marshall Too Tall

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

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Volume 1, Issue No. 6                                           (Web Edition)                                                 August  2003

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TOP TEN SHOOTERS

Pleasant

THE LITTLE COWBOY RIDES AGAIN

     A firey horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty, “Giddy Up, Horsey!” The little cowboy rides again!  Do parts of this lead in sound familiar?  Well, if you’re old enough to remember the Lone Ranger programs, they should.  If you ain’t, well you just learned something you didn’t know.  Notice the trail gear this little feller’s weaing.  A cowboy hat and boots…and…he’s sittin’ tall

and proud aboard his trusty mount, Grasshopper.  Grasshopper?  Who is this future Cowboy Action Shooter and Ocoee Ranger?  Well, it’s none other than ol’ Tri.  Ain’t he somethin’?

OPEN RANGE

A NIFTY NEW WESTERN MOVIE

     There’s an excellent, new Western movie in the theaters now.  It has everything a Western needs: terrific outdoor scenery, plenty of action, good guys, bad guys, period correct guns, a realistic looking town site, a touch of romance, and an attractive leading lady.  (Old

Iron Pants, Swampy and 

Kevin Costner & Robert Duval in “OPEN RANGE”

GUNPOWDER CREEK REGULATORS HOLD BENEFIT SHOOT 3RD SAT IN SEPT

Howdy,  

Horsetrader, the president of the Gunpowder Creek Regulators in Lenoir, NC has invited us to a benefit shoot they are having for one of their members on September 20th. Their compadre, Parker Shotgun, is recovering from lung cancer and three brain tumors and needs help.  They’re   

Ocoee Red

going to shoot an eight stage-four posse shoot.  The shoot

Here are the directions to their range, if you’re interested in going: 

Horsetrader’s email address is  murf@twave.net 

Thanks, Ocoee Red

December/Christmas Shoot & Event

Dont forget – our next Ocoee Rangers’ shoot on September 27th .  The cook will be there. Hamburgers, hotdogs, the trimmin’s and soft drinks and water are available at a very reasonable price.

SHOOT THROUGH PASSES FOR OCOEE RANGERS SHOOTS

Remember:

3. In a year, you only get to play cowboy or cowgirl and shoot 12 times, unless you visit another group. So take advantage of your opportunity to shoot as an Ocoee Ranger.

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Volume 1, Issue No. 6                                           (Web Edition)                                                 August 2003

Page 3

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

     Duncan Renaldo was a movie actor of the 40’s and 50’s, but he became known and remembered not for his many movie roles, but for one movie character that he also portrayed on TV:  The Cisco Kid.  As the Cisco Kid, Duncan brought dash, adventure and a style to the screen.  As a Mexican cowboy, he was not a comic figure.  He was fast with a pistol, commanded respect because of his courage and presence, and he always got the bad guys.  Oh sure, other actors had played the Cisco Kid before Duncan assumed the role, and a few years ago, another feller tried his hand at portraying Cisco.  But none of them fit the role like Duncan. He was the Cisco Kid. Shucks, this ol’ word 

Duncan Renaldo as the Cisco Kid

slinger even saw Duncan in person decked out as the

Cisco Kid.  That was in the old Western town of Knoxville, TN more years ago than it’s fun to remember.  Cisco, that’s who he was to me back then, gave me an 8 X 10 photo of himself in costume and on his horse, Diablo.  Yeah, Diablo was with him when I saw him at Cas Walker’s Super Market in what is now North Knoxville.

     It’s funny that the Cisco Kid’s lead in identified him as “O. Henry’s famous Robin Hood of the Old West”.  If you read O. Henry’s short story “The Caballero’s Way”, you’ll find that his Cisco Kid isn’t Mexican and isn’t a good guy.  But who cares. Doesn’t the name “the Cisco Kid” have a ring to it?  And if you saw Duncan Renaldo as the Cisco Kid, and you were a kid when you saw him, you wouldn’t doubt that he was the Cisco Kid, and the Cisco Kid was a good guy.  Shucks, he still is. 

     Deadfoot has been a fixture, or maybe a character, at southeast Tennessee Cowboy Action Shoots since 1998. He shot with some of us at Guns & Stuff and then migrated to Cleveland and continued riding the cowboy shooting range. When selecting an alias, he chose Deadfoot. Asked why he selected that name, he once laughed and said, “Well, it was either that or 9 toed Steve.” He chose the better name, don’t you think?  During his cowboy shootin’ days, he’s protrayed pistoleros

in black, Buffalo Bill in a blond wig and wide

Deadfoot

brimmed hat, a Doc Holiday that looked like a Mississippi River Boat gambler, and other characters.  But he always had fun and he’s always been fun to shoot with.  In May, 2003, Deadfoot showed up wearing a big, elaborately designed Mexican sombrero that reminded one of the Cisco Kid, if one was either old enough to remember the Cisco Kid from the 50’s…or subscribes to the Western Channel on Cable TV.  In any event, whoever he shows up as, Deadfoot can be counted on to be a good shootin’ compadre and to make a lot of smoke:  he shoots black powder.

Tiburcio Vasquez

     Tiburcio Vasquez was a real life Mexican bandit and desperado in old California.  Born in 1835, in Monterey, CA, Tiburcio learned to read, write, steal horses, commit robberies, and lead other fellers committing similar acts.  He served time in prison more than once, but still continued his wild life style.  He was friendly, if he wasn’t robbing or shooting you or stealing your horse, and the lady’s loved him. In fact that’s how the law finally closed in on and captured him.  He was being amorous with the wife of one of his henchmen, and the irate feller turned himself in to the law and 

Tuburcio Vasquez

made a deal to turn Tiburcio in and to testify against him. 

Vaya con dios, amigos.

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

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When ties occur in the overall score (overall score = the sum of the rank scores), the overall time is used to break the tie in assigning the overall rank.  At the July Shoot, Owlhoot Hardin & Tennessee Tombstone tied in both the overall score and overall time.  Therefore, they tied at rank 36.  We skipped rank 37 because of the tie, and the next shooter was ranked 38.  There were several other ties in overall score and overall time was used to break the ties.

Volume 1, Issue No. 5                                           (Web Edition)                                                     July  2003

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61 SHOOTERS DEFEND THE WEST OF OUR IMAGINATION AT JULY SHOOT

     Match day started sorta slow.  Only five cowboys participated in the buffalo shoot.  Tri placed 1st in the Open Sight Category.  Marshal Too Tall placed 1st in the Peep Sight Category, but it didn’t count because he was the only entry in the category.  Mesquite Millie was registering shooters, and at 9:30 the Posse Leaders and Assistants started their pre-match stage walk-through.  At that time, only 39 shooters were registered.  Posse Leaders for 5 posses were doing the walk through, and it looked like we’d have 

three posses. Then, BAM!  Folks started rolling in, and within a few minutes, 61 shooters were registered.  Sorta!  One of them cowboys could have been called Dos Hombres, 

On July 27, Colonel Allison, our Senior Cowboy, celebrated his 80th birthday. Congratulations, Colonel.

     Amongst our visitors were four cowboys from North Carolina.  They were impressive lookin’ hombres.  All wore black shirts, brown pants, white hats, and high top black boots with three red diamonds on the tops.  At their club shoots, the Gunpowder Creek Regulators, their stages all involve guardin’ the 3 Diamonds Mine, or protectin’ gold shipments from the 3 Diamonds mine.  They must be purty good at guardin’ the gold, 

L-R: Pocko, Ripshin (Regulators’ Range Master), Sixgun Shookster, Horsetrader, (Pres-Gunpowder Creek Regulators

‘cause the 3 Diamonds  Company evidently pays it’s Regulators well

     All joking aside, Cruel Hand Luke demonstrated mature range safety discipline at the July Shoot.  He shoots pretty fast, as in fast enough to be our Top Gun in July.  But on one of his stages, he fired a squib load.  The bullet went just far enough into the barrel of his pistol to allow the cylinder to turn.  Before the Posse Leader and his helpers could yell “Stop Shootin’!,”  Cruel Hand Luke had already stopped.  That means the cowboy is conscious of what he’s doing even when shooting fast.

SHOOT RESULTS

Traditional

Duelist

Cruel Hand Luke

Curly Top

Cool Waters

Dutch Al

Dustin Clays

Horseshoe John

Modern

Black Powder

Tarheel

T-Bone Angus

Catoosa Kid

Black Powder Joe (Coffee Joe)

Cowgirl

Senior

Killin’ Time

Linc

Abagail Rose

Rev. Adam Jones

Summer Dove

Sheriff Donald

Gunfighter

Buffalo Shoot

D.Q. Jones

(Open Sight)  Tri

Pleasant

Loose Cinch

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

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Volume 1, Issue No. 5                                           (Web Edition)                                                     July  2003

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TOP TEN SHOOTERS

Sixgun Shookster

COWBOY ACTION SHOOTING IS A FAMILY SPORTING ACTIVITY

3 GENERATIONS OF COWBOYS

The Wesley family. L-R: Izzy Ded Yet, Sixes, Whip Wesley

On July 11th, Blayde Hollister got himself married.  Yeah, he ain’t single no more.

     Blayde’s dressed as dapper as Bat Masterson would’ve.  Blayde Hollister has been shootin’ with us since 1998.  KD (pronounced – Kaddie) visited with us in November 2002 as an observer and said she enjoyed our game.                                                              

Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Blayde Hollister. Blayde is the son of Mesquite Millie and Deadman.

OCOEE RANGER BADGES

Good Day Pards,

     Received the first order of Ocoee Ranger badges, and they look great.  I did not receive them in time to get the badges to our June shoot.  Now that people have seen them, I imagine that some more folks will order once they see the badges.  Neil Swendsboe at Starpacker, our badge supplier, sent me the following message:  “Glad you like the badges and they met your expectation.  The price will

Happy Trails,

Tri

Dont forget – our next Ocoee Rangers’ shoot on August 23rd.  The cook will be there. Hamburgers, hotdogs, the trimmin’s and soft drinks and water are available at a very reasonable price.

SHOOT! MAGAZINE TO LIST OCOEE RANGERS SHOOTS

SHOOT THROUGH PASSES FOR OCOEE RANGERS SHOOTS

Remember:

3. In a year, you only get to play cowboy or cowgirl and shoot 12 times, unless you visit another group. So take advantage of your opportunity to shoot as an Ocoee Ranger.

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Volume 1, Issue No. 5                                           (Web Edition)                                                    July 2003

Page 3

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

     Alan Ladd was a little feller who made a number of movies, most of which weren’t Westerns.  But he made a few Westerns, two of which were very good and one was excellent.  In WHISPERING SMITH, Alan played Whispering Smith, a railroad trouble-shooter who was tall in the saddle and quick on the draw.  Well, quick on the draw is more like it.  The movie was good enough that another short feller played the part in a short-lived TV Western series:  Audie Murphy.  The other very good Western that Alan did was BRANDED.  In that movie, he played a gunslick who started out to swindle a rancher, but fell for his daughter and reformed.   The excellent Western that Alan did      

Alan Ladd in buckskins as Shane

was SHANE .  recognized as one of all time classic

Western movies.  In that movie, Alan wore buckskins, a gun belt adorned with silver conchoes, and carried a white handled, 7 ½ inch Colt.  Trying to hang up his six-gun, he hung up his buckskin outfit and tried his hand at farming.  But in the end, he put the buckskins and six-gun back on and saved the day by shooting all the villains.  Then, “he road back into the heart of the great and glowing west from whence he had come.  And he was Shane.”  With those words, that’s how the book ended. Most folks still remember Alan Ladd as Shane. All 5 feet 6 inches of him. After all, a person makes an impression on others, and size has nothing to do with it …. In reel life or in real life.  

     Dead Beat is a Cowboy Action Shooter who took a page from the scripts of the many Western movie heroes who wore buckskins.  There were the Ranger Rider, and TV’s Wild Bill Hickok, and Kit Carson, and Shane, and the list goes on.  When you look at ol’ Dead Beat in his buckskin shootin’ outfit, he’s a little like these cowboys.  He doesn’t talk much.  He has that steely stare of the gunfighter, but his gray hair makes him a little different.  Shucks, in the real West, most of the gunfighters were dead before they were 40.   The real shootists used black powder when they did their shootin’, and so does Dead Beat.  

If you visit a Cowboy Action Shoot with the Ocoee Rangers

Dead Beat in buckskins

or with the Smoky Mountain Shootists Society (the Knoxville cowboys & cowgirls) and you see a big cloud of smoke and you follow it to its source, it just might be that ol’ Deat Beat is shootin’ his guns and playing the cowboy shootin’ game. Say, “Howdy”, if you see him.  He’s a friendly sort of feller.

James Butler Hickok

     James Butler Hickok was one of the most legendary figures of the Old West, and he still is. In his adventurous life, he was a scout for the Yankees in the War of Northern aggression against the South, an employee of the pony express company, a cowtown marshal during the cattle drive days, a gambler, a prospector – though mostly at the card tables, a stage performer with Buffalo Bill Cody, and a man of the American West. Jim dressed sorta fancy, no matter what his role. In the cowtowns, he wore long dress coats, dress trousers, and a wide brimmed hat. In the stage productions in which he appeared, playing a genuine hero of the plains, he often wore buckins, and a wide brimmed hat. Sometimes, he wore holsters, and sometimes a red sash. 

James Hickok as Wild Bill Hickok

But no matter how he dressed, he carried two Colt .36 cal.

Till next month…happy trails.

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

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