Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 25, 1990 TAG: 9003262206
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Club members have been trying out the standard, eight-station range for a couple of weekends, and will open it to the public next Sunday. It will be the nearest skeet field to Roanoke. Shooter have had to travel to Rocky Mount or beyond to find a range.
Since the establishment of the organization in 1934, members of the Roanoke Rifle and Revolver Club have talked about building a skeet range, but never got past a primitive form of clay target shooting called barnyard skeet.
Bob Cook was one of the members who decided it was time to stop talking and start working. He heads the club's skeet committee.
"We have been working on it for a year and a half, day and night," he said.
The skeet field is one of several projects that have brought recent rejuvenation to the 170-member club. Members are finishing a new club house, have revamped a 100-yard rifle range and added 10 covered benchrests to a 20-position, 300-yard rifle range.
A 50-meter handgun range is scheduled for improvement in time for the Virginia State Games this summer.
The club operates a variety of matches March through November - silhouette, benchrest, high power, novelty - which are open to members and guests. The skeet field will be the first facility fully open to the public through a fee system, said Cook.
Public skeet shooting will begin on Saturdays at 10 a.m., and Sundays at noon. The fee is $4 per round for non-members; $3 for members. Members will operate the range.
A Wednesday afternoon skeet league is planned for the summer months, when there is daylight into the early evening hours, Cook said.
Club members aren't just responding to the need for a skeet facility in the Roanoke Valley, but they also are out to attract new members while doing it, said Cook, who is a past president.
"We are trying to generate new members by showing them all of the things we have done," he said.
The club has still another project in the works on its 288 acres.
"We already have started laying out a sporting clays range," said Cook. "That's a big draw now."
Like most organizations, the club frequently has difficulty getting members out for work projects, but that hasn't been the case for the skeet range, Cook said.
"We've had to turn down members who want to be on the skeet committee," he said.
The club facilities are reached by traveling east from Roanoke on Virginia 116. Cross Windy Gap Mountain and turn left at the foot of the mountain on Virginia 678. Go about one mile and turn left onto a gravel road across from a white church. Follow the gravel road to the end.
by CNB