[Bruce Hering]

Through the efforts of the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) 4H and some other programs we are seeing a major participation jump in numbers of youth actively shooting.

As to schools allowing teams, it all depends on the districts and their "political Position". I know when we approached our board of trustees at Southeastern Illinois College there was no hesitation for the go ahead for a "team" to be formed and with some scholarship dollars. We went on to wil National championships as a team and as individual shooters in both SCTP Collegiate and ACUI (which is a collegiate competition).

However, locally I know of one HS team that is not connected to their school because school administration would not allow it. So the kids and parents formed an outside the school team, met all the necessary guide lines and "presto" there was a team which by the way had about 15-20 members. They are strictly trap shooters.

What I have seen and must say I am pleased with is more schools both HS and college are fielding teams shooting all disciplines. This means they can compete in the HOA side of the team shoots.

I do think our future is brighter and hope it will continue. If you want to see it in action check out the SCTP HS Nationals and look at their numbrs and team geographic distribution.