GOSHEN —
The crack of rifles, pops of pistols and blasts of shotguns inaugurated the new firing range for the Elkhart County 4-H Shooting Sports Club at the fairgrounds Saturday.
For the past 18 years, club leaders have hoped to find a permanent home for the club, which has practiced at different ranges — most recently Cop’r Canyon in Bristol.
Shooting Sports leader Harold Schmucker said, “They treated us very nicely, but now we have our own home thanks to the fair board.”
When the Elkhart County Fair Board purchased Aggregate Industries’ acreage to the east of its existing fairgrounds off of C.R. 34, a permanent home for the club, which has 423 members and 28 volunteer instructors, became a reality. A backstop — a large, thick and tall mound of earth — was already in place. Club leaders just needed to build it up again.
Volunteers pitched in making the land ready and setting up the site with 28 targets for rifles and pistols, a trap range for shotgun and 15 positions for archery.
“Timewise to get it ready for them, I say we probably put in — with everybody’s time — at least 100 hours,” Schmucker said of the volunteers.
By Saturday, the range was ready and club members were introduced to their new home provided by the fair board — a permanent and safe place for children in third through 12th grades to learn safe gun handling.
Club signup starts the first of December, shooting starts in January and continues through July.
All of the clubs instructors are certified through Purdue in the discipline they are teaching and they have to go through a background check, Schmucker said.
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Members of the Elkhart County 4-H Shooting Sports Club sight in their targets during the first official practice at the club's new shooting range in Goshen Saturday afternoon. The range, located just to the east of the current fairgrounds property at 17746 C.R. 34, is part of the 253 acres of new property purchased by the fair board last fall as a way to expand the county fair's offerings. JOHN KLINE
4-H Shooting Sports Club moves its practice area to fairgrounds
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