Hello Shooters!
June was a month full of state shooting! We stared with the High School League State Shoot the first Saturday. Attendance went from 380 last year to 537 this year! Huge jump in attendance and we're expecting the same kind of growth (if not more) for next year! Josh and Beth Baker did an awesome job for their first year as AIM Directors. We ended up having 321 shooters this year, putting us up about 40 shooters for the event! The Singles Champion was Landon Dent, who broke his first 200 straight!
The ISTA State Shoot was down a bit in attendance, but still ended up running smooth despite the weather for the week. Dennis Baker did a great job as President for the State and now Mike Dennis will be our ISTA President. As usual, we had several firsts. Kyle Fabisiak broke his first 100 straight as the age of 11! What a feat! Alex Miller, Boedy Baker and Justin Cavett broke their first 100 straights in Singles! Jim McCammon broke his 100,000th Doubles target! Moving onto the big winners for the weekend: my squad mate, Mike Jordan, won Singles Champion after a shoot off against Mike Hathaway with a perfect 200. The Doubles Champion, after a shoot off with Hayden Hemrich and Jeremiah Schultz, was Bill Grill, with a score of 98. Handicap Champion, after a shoot off with Mark Fielder, was Hayden Hemrich, with a score of 98. The All Around winner, after a shoot off with Hayden Hemrich, was Chase Horton, with a score of 392. Chase also won the High Over All Champion outright with a score of 1153. Congratulations to all of the winners! Everyone who won Champion or Champion of their categories are eligible to shoot in the Champion of Champions event at the Grand American.
We are still looking for donations to start building the new building for the Illinois Hall of Fame. Every little bit helps, so please contact Dennis Baker or Bill Duncan, if you are interested in helping get the process started. If you didn't see the tentative blueprints at the State Shoot this year, you can see them any time at the current Illinois Hall of Fame at Brittany Shooting Park.
Please feel free to contact me with any comments/suggestions for what you would like to see next year. Thanks for all your support this past year and am looking forward to a good 2020 target year as well!
Lauren Mueller, ATA Delegate
Hello Shooters!
Hope you all have a great time at the Open, the AIM State shoot and the ISTA State Shoot! Make sure after you win a trophy that you get a picture taken! You may see it in Trap & Field!
I went down to San Antonio for the Southwest Grand and saw several familiar faces there. One that really stood out was Garrett Helms. He managed to win Champion in 4 of the 5 events! He lost the Singles, then proceeded to take event Champion in the Doubles, Handicap, High Over All and High All Around! Very impressive shooting!
We had our first annual Texas-Illinois Challenge Cup. The weather didn't cooperate with either club, but I'd say we had the worse end of it. Randy Miller won the Doubles Champion between the two clubs, but Waco managed to take the other disciplines. We'll have to come back next year with a vengeance! I wanted to take this opportunity to thank White Flyer for their generous donation. We look forward to working together in the future!
We are still looking for donations to start building the ISTA HOF building. It will have a beautiful display of our history and function as a place to make it more efficient to hand out trophies at the State Shoot.
See ya on the line!
Lauren Mueller
ATA Delegate
Hello Shooters!
The Spring Grand just finished in Tucson, AZ, and a few shooters stood out among the crowd! It sounds like it was kind of a bummer.. Going down to Arizona to escape the cold, just to get snowed on down there as well ha! Elise Baker went down for the first time and took home 7 trophies! Randy Miller won the Pleasant Valley Handicap event with a 98 and Adam Fabisiak was the high score in the Prescott Handicap with a 97. His son, Kyle, won the Sub Junior Champ in Handicap the following day!
The IL Hall of Fame building is ready to be built! We are just looking for donations to get the process rolling. We are trying to reach $130,000 and have quite a ways to go. Any donation will help! If you haven't seen the floor plan in the ISTA building at Brittany, we are going to have an addition to the ISTA building for the Hall of Fame, as well as our trophy room. That should help with picking up trophies at the end of the day.
If you missed the Northern Zone shoot at Downer's Grove, you can still make the Central Zone in Peoria or the Southern Zone in Rend Lake. Both shoots will be held on Memorial Day weekend (May 25 & 26). Remember, you do have to shoot all 400 targets at a zone shoot to qualify for the state team. Our state shoot will be held June 8-16. The 8 and 9 will be our AIM state shoot, the 10 will be the marathon day to get any targets in that you are short for penalties, and the 11-16 will be the main week of the shoot. If you are wanting to camp, I do have a large wait list, but contact me at
Lauren Mueller
ATA Delegate
Hello Shooters!
It's getting to be time to get the guns out and start blasting again! Make sure you let me know what's been going on at your clubs so I can put it in my next article!
Several people have been asking about the State Shoot dates. They are going to be June 10-16, 2019.
One big shoot we have coming up is the Texas-Illinois Challenge Cup. I do believe this is going to be a big shoot, so come on down to Brittany Shooting Park to help us kick some Texas butt! There will be $1,000 to the HAA Champion and $500 to the Champion of each Discipline (high shooter from either TX or IL). White Flyer has donated $1,500 for a combined Lewis Class between the two clubs. It will consist of 200 Singles on Saturday, April 27 and 100 Doubles and 100 Handicap on Sunday, April 28. There will be a traveling trophy between the two clubs for the top 5 High All Around combined scores. You do not have to be from Illinois or Texas to compete.
There is also a new AIM Director - Josh Baker. If you have any questions for the upcoming year, you can get a hold of him at
Please don't hesitate to get me some information for the article. I love telling how awesome our Illinois shooters are! Send the information to
Good luck shooters!
Lauren Mueller
ATA Delegate
Hello Shooters!
It's that time of the year again. Winter is wrapping up and everyone's getting the itch to go out and shoot again. Before you go out to the line this year, take a step back and check out how the last year treated you. Did you meet your goals? It's important to have your sights set on something for the year. It's what gives you the drive to do better. Just make sure you can tell the difference between short term and long term goals. Both are great to have! You can't get upset if you don't earn 4 yards in 4 weeks though. It's okay to make them tough, but make sure you stay realistic. The amount of All Americans from the State of IL is incredible. Keep it up! Just make sure you don't forget to shoot at your local clubs too. Chasing points is fun, but monthly shoots are good ways to get in some more targets for the state team!
Down in Tucson for the Autumn Grand, as I was watching the scores, Garrett Helms' name just seemed to come up every time with some impressive scores! Finishing with the third highest score on the All Around is pretty impressive. Mike Westjohn was one of the only six 200's on the Championship Singles. Way to represent!
Don't forget to share with me the good stuff you're seeing at the shoots! I want to know what you would like to hear about in my articles. Please send them to
Happy Shooting!
Lauren Mueller
ATA Delegate