Sharpshooter

“I dropped my option on low 8, which put me in a shoot off and in my shoot off I ditched my pair on 3 and I feel like a Helen Keller.” What in the world does this random compilation of words mean and more importantly who uses them? I’ll tell you of one person who does. Her name is Logan Brinkley, senior, and she knows her way around a gun.
So what exactly is that phrase? That is shooting talk in its essence. Well, more accurately skeet shooting. Many of you may not know this, but we have a young shooting champion in our school and her name is Logan. She may be too modest to tell you this, but she has accumulated a number of scintillating titles in her short amount of years such as 12 Gauge Junior Lady Champion of the nation at the Junior World Shoot in Mississippi and No. 2 Lady in California (she is ranked number 2 in California for skeet shooting). She has earned these great honors through winning numerous competitions that have taken her as far as Illinois, Mississippi, Texas, and Colorado.
As recently as August, Logan became the 12 Gauge Junior Lady Champion. If you didn’t realize from the title, that puts her in the top echelon of all young shooters. It wasn’t always this way though. A lot of hard work and dedication over the last eight years have gone into her becoming the shooter she is now.
She got interested in shooting through her father. “My dad was a hunter safety instructor, so I was pretty much always around guns.” That love of firearms grew and grew, and she eventually became very serious about shooting shotguns around the age of thirteen. This is where she began to work with coaches including Olympic shooting coach Dan Carlisle.
Shooting is not work for Logan. She still loves playing this sport she has become so deeply entwined with, challenging herself over and over again to get perfect scores. She has met some of the best people she knows through shooting and every experience proves new and exciting.
Some might say though that skeet shooting should be a sport only reserved for males. Logan confidently and succinctly begs to differ, saying, “It is proven that women have the ability to be better shooters. You will never know until you try.” If you need any more proof than that, just come and watch her shoot.
As for the future, Logan is keeping her options open, but her aspirations high. While the Olympics are definitely a possibility, she is taking things one step at a time starting with college. She will be attending Schreiner University in the fall and become a part of their shooting team.
By Mark Medina, 9th grade