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Victoria Skeet and Trap Club · P.O. Box 4116 · Victoria, TX 77903-4116 · Email
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Victoria Skeet and Trap Club
HISTORY

You can't start talking about the Victoria Skeet and Trap Club without looking at where we came from and where we are going.
by Mike Hessong* (MH*)
President- Victoria Skeet and Trap Club 2007-2010

The Victoria Skeet and Trap Club was established and opened for business to our members and their guests on September 1, 2004. This new club was created due to the loss of the lease of the "old" Victoria Gun Club that had been in operation on Conti Lane for over 50 years. Due to the growth of the city of Victoria and landlord issues, the Victoria Gun Club closed down on February 28, 2004.

The club had known for a year or two that this was going to happen and we began looking at possible sites for our new shooting facility. Without the monetary resources to purchase our own land and having a hard time finding someone to lease us the land needed for the new range (also at a price that would be agreeable to the membership) we signed a contract with Victoria County/Victoria Regional Airport and began work on building a "brand-new" clay target shooting facility on airport property. Initially, we had a hard time getting people involved with building the new range, since "they" still had a range to shoot at on Conti Lane and didn't have time to help the forward thinking members who did most of the construction on the new range.. We had a lot of super help from many people and businesses. Without their support, we wouldn't be where we are today.

When we built our new facility we decided to "change" the name of the organization from Victoria GUN Club to Victoria Skeet and Trap Club to better reflect what we do at our new range. The "old" club had a rifle and pistol range at one time. Due to some litigation, those ranges were closed down in the late 80's or early 90's and the club ended up being just a single skeet, trap and country doubles range. When we began building our new facility, we wanted to keep "SKEET" and "TRAP" in the forefront of our name so people would know what we were all about.

We opened our new range with 2 skeet fields, 2 trap fields and 1 country doubles range. I think it turned out to be one of the nicest ranges in South Texas or maybe even all of Texas but, of course you know I am little biased on that point. We hope to have a 5-stand sporting clays field "up and running" sometime during the 2008 shooting season. Sporting clays is one of the hottest games in clay target sports. We see the new 5-stand as a major addition to our club.

As we were constructing our new facility, I applied for a grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for money to help build our new range. This money is the result of the Pittman-Robertson Act which is money that is collected from taxable items sold for the outdoor hunting and recreational areas. I asked for $120,000.00 and the club was awarded a grant for 1/2 of that amount ($60,000.00). This was a good start to help with the construction of the new buildings and concrete that would eventually become the Victoria Skeet and Trap Club. I also heard of a private foundation here in Victoria and wrote a letter to them and asked for $10,000.00 to help with the building of our new club. We were given this money in the spring of 2004.

As continued with the construction of the club during the summer of 2004, we ran into a slight problem with the cost of materials needed for building our club. As everyone now knows, metal prices had doubled and in some cases tripled, so this took a toll in the amount of work that could be done with the monies we had. Before we finished building the club, I applied for a "supplemental" grant (again from the TP&WD) for an additional $44,000.00 to help offset the rising prices of materials that we needed to finish building the club. We were awarded $30,000.00 for this 2nd TP&WD grant. So, after writing 2 grants and asking a private foundation for a donation, we were $100,000.00 closer to getting our club built. These grants through the TP&WD allowed us to build a facility to hold "Hunters Education" classes and a place for the Victoria County 4-H club to train for their various state competitions.

Before the club opened officially to the members and their guests, we held an appreciation dinner serving up some delicious steaks with all the trimmings thanking the people who had donated so much time, money and materials toward our goal to build a new club. Everyone was really impressed with what we had accomplished. A special thank you goes to Ivan Townsend and his company (CIC Construction Company of Louise) who did the initial trenching and laying of the power and water lines that would supply our club. Without Ivan's generous donation of his company's time, equipment and operators, we would never have been able to get to where we are today. When we opened for business in September of 2004, we began taking pro-rated memberships (as we always have on September 1st of each year) thus allowing new members to join our new club for the remainder of the 2004 shooting year, while joining up for the next shooting season at the same time. Within the first couple of months, we probably picked up over 30 new members. For every 4 or 5 new people that had come out to see our new range, 2 or 3 of them would want to join up! We have stayed at approximately 150 members ever since opening up in 2004.

Our two skeet fields have nice bronze plaques on them near the plug-in receptacle. They honor two individuals who were important to both the old club and the new club. Ms. Barbara Briggs donated $5,000.00 to the club in memory of her brother, Tommy Bauer, after whom we have named the main skeet field, "The Tommy Bauer Field". Tommy was one of the best shooters in the country years ago and, was one of the mainstays of the "old" Victoria Gun Club. Many of the older members of the club remember shooting with Tommy. The stories I have heard of his shooting ability really make me wish I could have seen him shoot.

Our 2nd skeet field is dedicated to one of our members who was very instrumental in building our current range, Paul Ward. The plaque is dedicated to David "Paul" Ward, and I still remember the terrible day I heard the news report of an accident down near Port Lavaca where a local man was killed named David Ward. Most people didn't know Paul's given first name, but I knew it was him right away. This was 3 days before our annual "Election of Officers" meeting in 2005. The club had only been open a little over 4 months and Paul was gone. His funeral was on the day of the officers meeting, January 27, 2005.

During the 2005 and 2006 shooting seasons, we were approved by the national headquarters of the National Skeet Shooting Association and Amateur Trapshooting Association to hold "registered" skeet and trap shoots at our club. Quite a few local shooters shoot registered targets and now they have one more venue at which they can hone their sport.

We are in the process of building a 5-stand sporting clays field on the South end of the range and, are currently moving the existing gun club fence to allow easier movement of the machines for the 5-stand. I have written another grant in the amount of $30,000.00 to the NRA (National Rifle Association) "Friends of the NRA". The meeting to decide who gets what and how much will was February of 2007 in Washington D.C. After the meeting, we found out we had been awarded a $10,000.00 grant through this organization.

We in the process of relocating the office area of the classroom/clubhouse to an area in the front part of the storage room that is connected to the classroom. This will allow all of the office work and computer work to be done in an area away from all of the traffic coming and going into the clubhouse. We hope to make a nice sitting area in the area where the existing office set-up is now. We want to purchase a couch or two and maybe a coffee table and/or end table so people can relax when not shooting. We want to buy a TV/VCR/DVD media center to be able to watch videos of "Safety Orientation" of "Shooting Videos" and the like. Maybe we can even get a satellite system for when the weather is bad and we can't shoot. We could spend some time in the clubhouse and just kick back and watch some TV. This would also be nice for "significant others" of the shooters to have something to do when out with their spouses at the club.

The Victoria County 4-H "Shotgun Shooting" group also uses our range to train their shooters. The group is run by Billy Yandell and his son Jason Yandell with the help of a couple of members with children or grandchildren in the program. They practice at the club once or twice a month. Having extra skeet and trap fields allows them to shoot and club to still have fields available for its members. When we get our 5-stand completed, it will also help the 4-H train for local and state shoots.

We will continue to be the "Home of the South Texas Fun Shoots" and the place for Wednesday Night Pot Shoots (2nd and 4th Wednesday nights - April thru August). The Wednesday night Pot shoots for the 1st Wednesday night will continue to be at Darrell Hester's "Stein's Gun Club", his residence outside of Mission Valley, Texas. Darrell puts on some really good shoots at his range.