The shooting center passed 500 annual members earlier this month.
“It is exciting to share Halter’s world-class shooting facilities with members of the public,” Range Director Matt Little said in a press release. “First-time shooters, multiple-time Olympians, and everyone in between can improve their skills and enjoy the shooting sports at the Halter Center.”
According to Little, the John Anthony Halter Shooting Sports Education Center will offer more shooting opportunities after the completion of a new rifle and pistol complex.
“Our goal is to make the Halter Center a premier destination for marksmanship training and recreation in every season,” Little said.
The facilities include American and bunker trap fields, skeet fields, a sporting clays course, a five-stand range, and an archery range. Memberships at the center start at $125 per year and offer multiple amenities depending on membership level
Junior Jillian Golden, a member of the precision shooting team, said she is excited more people are getting involved in the Halter Center.
“The memberships climbing in Halter means way more people are involved at Halter than just the people who are involved with the college already,” Golden said. “This is great for teams like mine, because now we have growing pools of donors, but also new members and all of their friends can come and contribute to our teams, which is super exciting.”
Golden said the new memberships are also helpful for the recently completed Nimrod Education Center, where she works. Nimrod offers education on the societal benefits of hunting, fishing, and other recreational sports.
“Most of the Halter members can probably come on memberships with us at Nimrod, because they’re combined,” Golden said. “So we’re going to have a ton of people shooting.”
Junior Zac Briley won multiple archery tournaments in high school and practices the sport weekly at the Halter Center.
“I have multiple gold pins to show for it, and at my archery club in high school, we practiced on the other side of the action base. So, when there was a match in the action base, we’d sometimes get hit by things flying over from the other side,” Briley said.
In addition to archery helping Briley hone his precision, he said it is important people outside of the college are taking up shooting sports.
“More people are getting involved in shooting, which I think is a wonderful thing,” Briley said. “It’s great for people to utilize and enjoy some of the freedoms we have in this country.”
