The Down East Garand Shooters held their fourth annual awards banquet at the Pig Palace on Saturday January 26. Over 40 of our die hard shooters and their families braved the weather to enjoy a fine meal and presentation of awards for the 2012 shooting season.
The Junior Division went first in recognizing their high shooter. Nick Simonetti took the honors this year with a score of 564-8X. The first award for the seniors this year went to the club Vice President and web master Jason Cisarano. Throughout the season, Jason was able to improve his average by 25 points allowing him to take home the honor of Most Improved Shooter. Recognizing the increase of modern military shooters at monthly matches, this year saw the introduction of a new award, Modern Military High Score. Dewey Hales Jr scored an incredible 292-8X in the last match of the season to take home the Modern Military High Score. The final award for the year went to Clint Randles as the club’s High Shooter. Clint established himself as the High Shooter while setting the club record of 291-4X in the first match of the season. Congratulations to all of the award winners.
The awards banquet also served as the annual general business meeting for DEGS. As part of this meeting, new officers were elected and new business was conducted. This year saw the retention of Chris Kurek as club president and Mike Braddy as treasurer. Don McLane was elected as the new vice president and Chris Hymen as the club statistician, a new position for 2013. A significant piece of new business was the adoption of a sniper match for 2013. The match is to be run along the lines of the CMP sniper match with special rules and provisions for DEGS. The details of the match have yet to be fully worked out but will be coming out later in the year.
The culmination of the awards banquet was the raffle of this year's Garand Rifle. Clint Randles took loving care in restoring this year's rifle which is as much a shooter rifle as a trophy piece. 18 different members qualified for the drawing this year and three were able to qualify for a second chance in the drawing. The last name in the hat this year belonged to Chris Hyman who was proudly beaming as he accepted the rifle from club president Chris Kurek.
