Grand American

For five days at Vandalia, Ohio last week 700 of the ablest trapshooters in the U. S. stood on a mile-long firing line and blasted away at clay pigeons. When it was over, 1,000,000 shells, worth $32,000, had been fired, eleven carloads of targets had been broken and from the lists of scores compiled by a staff of specially trained accountants there emerged the winners of half a dozen championships.

P:North American Clay Target Champion was Joe Hiestand, 28-year-old farmer of Hillsboro, Ohio, who, when he broke 199 out of the first 200 birds, found himself tied with nine other shooters. Thereupon he broke 100 straight for the title.

P:Women's Champion was Mrs. Lela Hall of East Lynne, Mo. Tiny (100 lb.), determined and a dead shot with a twelve-gauge gun that nearly kicked her off her feet, she broke 191 targets, four better than her closest rival.

P:Major event of the Grand American Trapshoot, official name for the whole program of events at Vandalia, is the Grand American Handicap, in which anyone with a registered handicap may enter to shoot from a line measured off from the traps at a distance corresponding to his rating. The Grand American has never been won twice by the same shooter, rarely by a shooter of national reputation. Last week's was no exception.

Hiestand broke 96 birds, enough to win in some years but only good enough last week to put him in a tie for third place, which he won after a shoot-off. Winner was a 51 -year-old Seabord Air Line Railway conductor from Tallahassee, Fla., named Jordan B. Royall. No novice, Royall has been shooting for nine years, has been a Florida champion for four of the last five. Nonetheless, partly because he had never entered the Grand American before, few shooters at Vandalia knew who he was until, firing from 20 yd., he broke 98 targets out of the first 100 to tie Sam G. Vance of Tillsonburg, Ont. The rest of the field and 1,000 or so spectators gathered behind the backs of the two men to watch the shoot-off. After the first 25 targets, they were still tied. Then, after 25 more, Vance had missed four birds to Royall's three and his defeated rivals were pumping the conductor's steady hand.

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