Patriots' Day came early to Palm Bay this year. This was our once-a-year opportunity to hold our clinic in a center-fire bay at Port Malabar Rifle & Pistol Club. Our host is very supportive of our program. Chip, the Rifle Director, stopped by. We presented him with a special red shirt. The weather was perfect. Clear, sunny, and not too hot with crisp temperatures overnight.
The 19 students were a mix of brand new shooters with old hands who have scored before. After extensive instruction and dry fire, we shot our first squares target at 11:45. Time for lunch and the second strike then back to shooting and more drills. By the end of the day, we saw two students and an instructor requalified as Rifleman. The other scores ranged from 58 to 166. That left plenty of room for improvement on Sunday.
We went as a group to dinner Saturday night and enjoyed birthday cake in honor of Donnie. According to his wife, he is nearly as old as the grumpy Shootboss. ;D
After a good night's rest to allow the brain to assimilate what the students experienced on Saturday the scores rapidly rose. By the end of the day, we saw four Riflemen--two new and two requalifications. Paul V., Kurt, Donnie, and Jason were our student Riflemen for the weekend. HUZZAH!
Among the others, there were nine Sharpshooters and three Marksmen. Several of those Sharpshooters are hot on the trail. Jen and Lou were less than ten points from the Patch. Next time! The most improved honors went to Paul G. who jumped from 83 to 170. Cheri rose from 86 at the start to 170 on Sunday. Sallie improved from 58 on Saturday to 126 on Sunday! Excellent improvement!
Donnie and Robert cleared the Redcoat/Hits Count Target. HUZZAH! Instructors requalifying included EpicQuilter, Evil_G, ScubaSteve, and TheMenace.
We ended the day Sunday with the solemn Memorial Volley for our fallen Patriot founders. It was an awesome weekend with new and old friends and lots of laughs and good fellowship.
Link to pictures: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzKoKz
If you have additional pictures please share them.
What a wonderful weekend of heritage, history and marksmanship. I know TheMenace ordered up special weather for the weekend and the students responded well to all the instruction.
Several are out buying rifles and signing up for their next Appleseed event. The marked improvement and the joyful faces were a remarkable pay day for the instructors.
The number of people eager to get back to marksmanship and learn additional history made thus event even more special. Patriot's events are a home coming of sorts and it was great to see so many new faces.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/193056249@N06/6aGy48
Some photos for y'all...
Did I mention how awesome and amazing it was to see our Shoot Boss with more than 100 events get presented a Grey Hat? It was a memorable event and one I'm sure many wanted to attend. Next time we'll have to live stream it. I will say that TheMenace has touch so many lives and provided guidance and mentoring to so many orange hats, it's no wonder he was chosen to be a senior instructor! :F
Dennis, I am overjoyed to see you in that grey hat!
Well done, my brother!
O0
Huzzah, Huzzah, Huzzah!
:F
Looks like an amazing event!