July2026 (1) - Flipbook - Page 5
In The Spirit of the Times
By Jonny V
Thoughts on
Quigley
2026
There are a maximum of 60 shooters per scorecard. It takes a lot to
time to get the squadding right.
Certain people want to shoot with
other certain people. Arraigning all that is a lot of work. Most
shooting teams submit their own
squadding to the scorekeepers but
it all still has to be balanced out
before the match begins. Those
girls do a lot of work on Friday
afternoon.
Another Quigley match is in the
books. This year there were 563 total shooters. Every year, this match
seems to go off just like clockwork.
In 2021, there were 559 shooters.
In 2022, there were 468 shooters
(down year?). In 2023, there were
589 shooters. In 2024, there were
559 shooters. In 2025, there were
517 shooters.
Clearly, something is being done
right. During that time, there
has been turnover in the people
God Bless Black Powder!
running the Quigley. When I first
started going, Al and Claudia Kajin
were the Match Directors, and my
friend Tony Nielson was doing the
scorekeeping on an Excel spreadsheet. Nowadays, Pat and Brenda
Menahan are the Match Directors,
and they are also in charge of the
spreadsheet.
From the outside, it’s easy to miss
the details. Most people don’t see
the hours that the scorekeepers
spend writing out the scorecards.
Then the work really commences on Saturday morning. The
ammo is flying downrange, girls
are keeping score, Range Officers
are on the lookout for anything
and everything, cease-fires are
called for target painting, scores
are being punched in, and general
chaos rules the day. Four targets
are shot on Saturday. I remember
the match (two years ago) when we
had just pulled off our last target.
I looked up, and there was a giant wall of dirt and gravel headed
straight for us from the northwest.
Every canopy on the range was
turned into filler material for the
dumpster (if you could catch it
before it landed in South Dakota).
Porta-Potties were blown over (despite being staked down with steel
T-posts). Shooters on the firing line
hunkered down and continued to
fire (and get hits!).
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