A Vision For Youth Shooting Sports
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
This week’s column will start off with corrections. As many longtime readers recall, Mrs. Betty Shearer wrote a longstanding column weekly in the Herald before most of us ever heard of a blog — or before some of us were even born. One of the original purposes of her column was correcting mistakes from the previous edition. Rest assured, this tradition is still alive and well.
First off, we accidentally left out the volunteers from First Presbyterian Church, one of the many groups helping with the city cleanup weekend before last. Any time you start naming names, somebody is bound to get missed, especially with such a large turnout.
Then came my latest brain freeze.
Last week I somehow renamed relatively new Yalobusha County resident Roy McClain in the paper. His new name? Roy Mercer. More about that later.
The mistake hit me just before drifting to sleep that night, long after the paper had gone to the press. I called Roy Wednesday morning as soon as I finished the paper deliveries to let him know.
He was good-natured about it, especially considering I woke him up. The phone call created an opportunity to learn more about McClain’s project, his topic at that ambassador meeting.
The phone call actually turned into a really interesting conversation about the project he is bringing to Yalobusha County, and the more I listened, the more impressed I became.
McClain is working to establish the Mississippi Youth Shooting Sports Foundation, a nonprofit organization. He is a longtime shooting sports coach and instructor and this new facility will be located on his property south of Water Valley.
McClain said the newly formed Mississippi Youth Shooting Sports Foundation is currently completing the process to become a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
“We’ve done all the paperwork for the state, so we’re a legitimate organization,” McClain said. “But we’re waiting to get our paperwork back from the federal government, which gives us the full 501(c)(3).”
McClain has already purchased 12 electronic targets for the facility, which will include an indoor shooting range, and he hopes the program eventually attracts youth competitors not only from Mississippi, but from neighboring states as well.
To establish the organization, McClain assembled an initial board of directors that includes Lee McMinn and Missy Burney as founding members. Civilian Marksmanship Program State Director Michael East has also joined the board, along with East’s daughter, who McClain said has been involved in shooting sports since middle school.
What surprised me most was just how extensive his background really is. The man has spent decades involved in shooting sports instruction and coaching through organizations like 4-H, the NRA, USA Shooting and the Civilian Marksmanship Program. He holds advanced Level 3 rifle coaching certifications through NRA, CMP and USA Shooting programs, along with Level 2 certifications in pistol and shotgun coaching. He also serves on the National Coach Development Staff, helping train coaches around the country.
In other words, this is not somebody who just decided one day to fool around with the idea.
McClain explained the coaching certification ladder eventually reaches Olympic-level coaching, and he is qualified to work with athletes approaching that level. He has already been contacted about helping programs in surrounding communities.
One thing I really liked was his long-term outlook. He admitted this is probably the kind of project that will take the rest of his life to fully build. He compared it to planting trees whose shade future generations will enjoy.
Now for Mercer. The only thing that comes to mind is that I always had a little prankster in me, especially a love of prank phone calls back in the day. Roy D. Mercer was the king of prank calls. The fictional character was created by radio personalities Brent Douglas and Phil Stone on radio station KMOD-FM in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Douglas used the character as a vehicle for comedy sketches where Mercer would call unsuspecting people and threaten to “whup somebody” over some ridiculous misunderstanding.
I probably enjoyed those calls way too much, and McClain and Mercer apparently crossed wires in my brain. Fortunately, Roy McClain turned out to be a pretty good sport about the whole thing, especially considering his marksmanship.
