Big Shots

Trapshooting is the only U. S. sport in which amateurs win cash while professionals get cups. Last week 1,000 of the 7,000,000 U. S. residents who took out hunting licenses this year toted their shotguns to Vandalia, ten miles north of Dayton, Ohio. The birds they were after were clay pigeons. The occasion was the No. 1 trapshooting event of the year: the Grand American Tournament.

One big gun came to the "Grand" in a $20,000 private railroad car. Others came in trailers, camped behind the clubhouse. A doctor commuted from Cincinnati by plane. The week's 15 events offered $50,000 in prizes. In the Grand American Handicap, big prize event of the meet, there were no favorites, for a 14-year-old tyro, shooting from the 16-yd. line, had as good a chance to win as a top-flight marksman shooting from the 25-yd. line. Solidest tradition of the 39-year-old trapshooting classic is that an "unknown from nowhere" usually wins, and the same person never wins twice.

On the basis of past performances, the two outstanding U. S. trapshooters last week were 31-year-old Joe Hiestand of Hillsboro, Ohio, and 31-year-old Lela Hall of Strasburg, Mo. (pop. 144). During the week Farmer Hiestand broke 900 clay pigeons without a miss for a new world's record long run of 966, including 200 straight in the North American men's championship, which he won for the third time. Housewife Hall, who has ample time to practice because her husband owns a restaurant, has been called the best shot since Annie Oakley. During 1937 she shot at 1,600 registered clay targets for an average of better than 97 out of every 100 (a world's record for women), and accomplished the unprecedented feminine feat of breaking 284 straight at the Grand. Last week 117-lb. Lela Hall established another record when she won the North American women's championship (with 195 out of 200) for the fourth year in a row.

But in the Grand American Handicap, where men and women shoot together, neither topnotcher won. Winner, as usual. was an obscure gunner: 45-year-old Ortello West, county highway superintendent who had been shooting at and around clay targets for 17 years but never before had won "anything worth having." The $1,000 he won last week will go a long way in his home town of Coshocton, Ohio.

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