Got in a little while ago from an out of town weekend and had a present waiting in the mail box. The Summer LC Smith Journal arrived and in keeping with their established tradition, our Editors have done another wonderful job. This is the last issue under our current editor Cheryl (With help from Dr Jim) Stubbendieck, and we've benefitted greatly from their dedicated efforts over the last several years. Our new Editor Keith Tidball has some pretty big shoes to fill, and he's wound up and ready to go! A big thanks to John Brownell for his coverage of the Southern in Sanford. Lots goes on around the Dove Field Challenge Venue, and it's like herding cats keeping up with who was on what team and who was High Gun in which event. Toward that end, I note a correction or two is in order regarding the tie shoot-offs reported as having taken place after the winning teams were announced on Saturday afternoon. There were actually two shoot-offs. One was for third place I believe, and that was between Team LC's Don Shoemaker and Parkers Mike Koneski if I remember correctly. The second shoot-off was between LC's Adam Pickett and Parkers Dr. John Truitt for High Gun. Rick Hemingway chose the targets for the shoot-off, and having lost the coin toss, Adam Pickett went first. Rick chose to present 3 true pairs of the two most difficult targets that had been presented during the Challenge, and Adam went to work. Somehow he crushed the first pair, and called for the second pair, which met the same fate as the first pair. With one pair left, Adam knuckled in and called for the birds. The first bird turned to dust and as the second bird careened toward the tree line some 70 yards away, Adam finished with a perfect 3 dead pairs. Dr Truitt was up next and missed the second bird of the first pair if I recall correctly, leaving Adam with an extremely well deserved HOA trophy. In case you were wondering, in spite of what you may have read in your Journal, Yours Truly was not remotely in the running for that Tie-Breaker. Hopefully we'll have a repeat performance next year!
The Shoemaker/Koneski error is mine, I was furiously taking notes as the announcements were made and trying to keep up with taking photos of the action around the scoring tent. My apologies to those concerned and I'll promise to do better in the future!
No worries John, There was a lot going on during that 15 minute period, in multiple locations. Your event coverage was excellent, and I should have made sure you had good intel regarding the shoot-off that was not previously planned! Thanks again for your efforts!