NSSA-NSCA is compiling a written and pictorial history of the sports, the associations, and the National Shooting Complex to preserve the memories and insights of our longtime members who recall earlier days, events, and people that contributed to what the associations are today. Former longtime Executive Director Mike Hampton, Sr. has agreed to lead the effort to compile and organize the facts and materials and work alongside a professional writer to turn it into a book.
While the NSSA-NSCA Museum collects the artifacts that are instrumental to our history, nowhere is there a written history of how skeet and sporting clays were developed, how NSSA and NSCA came to be, who the leaders were who got us to this point, who the top shooters were along the way, and how disjointed parcels of land were assembled into the National Shooting Complex.
To bring this project to fruition, we need your help. We need to hear everything you know about our sports’ history, especially sporting clays. Were you shooting sporting clays when it first came to the U.S. in the early 1980s? If so, what clubs were hosting the big shoots, and what were the first sporting clays clubs in your part of the country? Were you a part of the U.S. sporting clays organizations that preceded NSCA? If so, we need to hear about them. While we have a good grasp on the sport since about 1990, we need to know much more about the decade of the 1980s.
Photos are also important. We would love to see your photos from years past. The older ones will no doubt be prints from film rather than digital, but a good scan (at the highest possible resolution) will work. When you send photos, please be sure to include your permission to use them and how you or another photographer should be credited.
If you can help with information or materials for this important project, we want to hear from you. Contact Mike Hampton Sr. at mikesrhampton@gmail.com. Please watch future issues of Clay Target Nation and “Target Talk” for updates on the project and what we’re looking for.
