Skeeters

Because an enterprising editor of a national sport magazine wanted to increase his advertising by booming the arms & ammunition industry, a new U. S. sport named skeet was created 13 years ago. An offshoot of trapshooting. its procedure of firing from eight different stations around a semicircle appealed to tony country-club members because it did a pretty good job of simulating upland game shooting. Five years ago there were 800 skeet clubs in the U. S., 20.000 registered skeeters. This year there are 2.500 skeet clubs, 100,000 skeeters.

The most astonishing thing about skeet is that 20% of its enthusiasts are women & children who probably would never have seen a shotgun were it not for the unique U. S. mores that deny them the privileges of golf courses on Sunday afternoons. To keep golf widows & orphans amused, many a sedate country club has erected a skeet field, developed expert marksmen out of onetime Sunday thumb-twiddlers.

At Tulsa, last week, the National Skeet Shooting Association held its fourth annual championship tournament. As usual, the headliners were not much older than the sport itself. Of the seven amateur champions determined during the week, only one was over 21. Youngest was Augusta's 12-year-old Clayton P. ("Red") Boardman Jr., freckles champion of Georgia, who. hobbling around on crutches (because of a foot infection that hospitalized him for six months), broke 95 out of 100 targets to retain the sub-junior title he won last year.

Only double champion was Jack Lindsey, 21, of Okmulgee. Okla., who won the sub-small-gauge title with a record-breaking 98 out of 100, and then took the small-gauge championship in a shootoff after tying two of the sport's most seasoned gunners at 99 out of 100. The new No.1 lady skeeter of the U. S. is a 17-year-old Akron schoolgirl. Patricia Laursen. who has been shooting only two years but was good enough last week to break 96 out of 100. the best record any woman has registered at the national meet.

In the main event, the 250-target all-gauge shoot, a comparative oldster of 28, Henry Bourne Joy Jr.. turned in an extraordinary performance--a perfect score of 250, something that had never been done before. Skeeter Joy, son of the late Henry B. Joy, onetime president of Packard Motor Car Co. and famed skeet pioneer in the Midwest, lost his right eye in a shooting accident five years ago. now shoots left-handed--and better than ever.

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