Y.H.E.C. State Competition

On the second weekend in June we trekked out to the desert by Millican for the Y.H.E.C. State Competition.  We arrived with camp trailer in tow late Friday night and the events would run on Saturday and Sunday.  There were eight events total:

Archery

Shotgun

Wildlife ID

Muzzleloader

Orienteering

Safety Trail

.22 Rifle

Exams: Responsibility & Muzzleloader

This was followed by an awards ceremony late Sunday afternoon.  In the middle of all this chaos we also attended a FNRA (Friends of the NRA) dinner & auction on Saturday night.

I have a few pictures of Archery & .22 Rifle to post.   The young man you see with Hunter during archery is Conner.

Shooting .22 while standing

The squirrel does not make it…

Shooting in a sitting position…

Watching the progress out in the field

And shooting prone trying to…       flip these little targets over.

And then we had the banquet in Bend on Saturday night.  This was a special banquet put on by the friends of the NRA to give out their yearly awards and to provide a special dinner for the Y.H.E.C. kids they sponsor. 

Here is the auctioneer and the kids all lined up to hand out auction & drawing items to their winners.

 The big deal for the evening was a Rugar 10/22 that they were giving away to some lucky Oregon Y.H.E.C. kid that was present at the banquet.  When it came time to read the name from the ticket they said “Hunter Espinola” and….it took a second for it to register.  All of us were cheering while it dawned on him and then he got really excited!

The package included the gun with a wood stock, a synthetic stock, a scope, a pair of safety glasses, some ammo, ear plugs and a nice carrying case.  Each of the stocks had NRA coins embedded - nice touch!

On Sunday everyone took written exams, ate lunch and waited for the final scores to be tallied and the winners announced.  The kids got to take in some cowboy action shooting with the Pine Mountain Posse during all of the waiting.

All of the winners were announced and there was a lot of happiness among all the kids.  There were hunts, ammo and all sorts of things given away for special awards and then the final Senior and Junior teams were announced.  Up to this point there was a secret that Warren was hiding for the 1st place showing on both the Junior & Senior team…

The Oregon State Y.H.E.C. Junior Team

And the Oregon State Y.H.E.C. Senior Team

And this picture lets the secret out….

Warren brought rifles & ammo to present to the 1st place winners on behalf of Nosler.  He also had a box of t-shirts, caps and stickers to give away to all the kids.

Nosler is AWESOME and so are all the Y.H.EC. kids!

Here is Warren with the 1st Place Senior Team member Cheryl Shaver and 1st Place Junior Team winner Brian Staebler-Siewell.

I am not totally positive but I don’t think Cheryl stopped ginning for at least a week :-)

Hunter did really well overall for his first year and we are very proud of him.  After he came down off of his winner’s high he crashed.  What a long weekend and with a lot less sleep than he had hoped for.

He wants to be a real contender for the 2011 Y.H.E.C. Nationals so he will be practicing on all 8 of the sections of knowledge and skill until next June…

Good luck next year Hunter!