Trapshooting teams find welcome audiences in Minnesota high schools.

Star Tribune
by David La Vaque
8/12/09

Katie Ogdahl labored for almost two years to get a trapshooting team at St. Francis High School. She spoke to school administrators. She wrote letters asking the Minnesota Trapshooting Association for help. She collected more than 100 classmates' signatures on a petition. But her efforts went for naught. Then one morning, months after abandoning her cause, Ogdahl saw a school announcement regarding sign-ups for the new trapshooting club team. She initially thought her eyes, able to track clay targets moving 40 miles per hour through the air dozens of yards away, deceived her. "I told my teacher, 'I've got to sign up now,'" she said. "I'm like, 'You don't know how long I've been waiting for this.'" St. Francis added a club team last spring, just in time to join seven other schools at the inaugural Minnesota State High School Trapshooting championships in June: Minnetonka, Prior Lake, Robbinsdale Armstrong, Wayzata, White Bear Lake, Worthington and Hopkins -- the first school to offer a club. Mark Czech, a music teacher in the Hopkins school district and member of the Plymouth Gun Club, started the club team in 2005 in conjunction with the Scholastic Clay Target Program, designed to grow the sport at the youth level. Convincing school administrators to sign off on a shooting sport is a challenge, he said. He submitted his initial proposal two weeks after the Red Lake High School shooting. "It's a little limited by people's view of the positive example this sport can set," he said. "There are a lot of negative examples out there, but I say, 'I have 45 positive examples at my school.'" Trapshooting, said Czech and three students, encourages individual development and team camaraderie just like traditional high school sports. "We couldn't wait until Mondays," Ogdahl said. "You never want to wish away the weekend, but Monday was trap night." A year after Czech started the Hopkins club, Minnetonka and Robbinsdale Armstrong successfully lobbied for teams using materials put together by Czech. Two high schools, Edina and Henry Sibley, have approached Czech for help with starting clubs next season. His pitch focuses more on friendship than on firearms. "Any time we can bring kids together in a school to form a little community, they generally feel more connected and they do better in the classroom," he said. Safety, however, remains a primary concern. All club members must have taken a firearms safety training course through the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The shotguns and shells used for the sport are not allowed on school grounds. Once at the range, students wear protective glasses and earphones at all times. Only one shell is loaded per round. "It's probably safer than football or basketball games," said Katy Empanger, who made her trapshooting debut as a junior at Hopkins last spring. "People understand the need to be responsible and safe."

Building bonds, breaking targets

Empanger joined the team with no firearm or trapshooting experience. Though related to numerous hunters, she disliked the thought of shooting an animal -- and getting up at 5 a.m. to try. But she knew a member of the Hopkins team and learned more from Czech, her homeroom teacher. So she joined the team and shot Monday nights for 10 weeks beginning in April. Club members bring their own guns and pay $200 for shells and clay targets. Their scores earn them a place at the novice, junior varsity or varsity levels.

Empanger went from hitting six to eight targets per round to scores "in the high teens." Her social network also grew in number. "I found friendships with kids that I might have ignored," she said. Former teammate Tanner Hilgers, an avid hunter who had no trapshooting experience before joining the Hopkins team as a freshman in 2006, said the sport had a wide appeal. "Some people are more about competition and being focused rather than shooting," he said. "Other people like the thrill of breaking stuff with a gun." Czech said the Hopkins club reached the maximum number of members (45) in each of the past three years. Prior Lake coach Chris Hesch limited his team to 21 members last season but "could've had a full 45-person team." Prior Lake is awaiting school board approval to compete again next season. St. Francis, meanwhile, had seven members on its inaugural team. Coach Ken Sonnenfeld, an elementary school teacher in the Anoka-Hennepin district and experienced trapshooter, plans to have a booth at freshman orientation this fall. Club members can earn a participation letter at Hopkins, something Sonnenfeld wants to see happen at St. Francis. His son, Cody, competed as a freshman. Ogdahl received a Top Gun award at the state meet for her precision, making her one of the top females in a sport in which few are competing. About 10 percent of the 200 kids at the state meet were females. She is anticipating more numbers next spring, regardless of gender. "The people that try it get so into it," she said. "I'd love to see more people try it. The bigger the family, the better."