Caught up in trapshooting, Minnesota farm family blasts away for fun and glory

Miranda Klassen toed the line at the Grand American World Trapshooting Championships in Sparta, Ill., her shotgun loaded with two rounds.

Rigid in her stance but mentally at ease, the 14-year-old farm girl from Benson, Minn., squeezed the trigger twice to blast yet another pair of clay targets out of the sky. Left, right or straight-away, the orange "birds'' exploded into shards and powder every time she yelled "pull.''

With her dad and pet Labrador, Diesel, watching, she reached into her ammo pouch for two more shells. It was empty! Miranda had shot her first perfect session of doubles — 100 targets in a row thrown two at a time. She rounded out her best day as a young trapshooter by missing just one of 300 additional shots during this summer's largest national gathering of trapshooters.

"I was listening to my music and I still thought I had more shells,'' she said. "I was in the zone.''

The Klassen family embodies a sporting movement that has swept 11,000 Minnesota high school kids into team shootouts at local gun clubs and larger tournament venues. The margins of victory are always narrow and to outsiders, perfect scores of 25 in a row seem almost routine.

But the sport's multifaceted offerings of discipline, marksmanship and fun appeal to students in numbers that continue to grow throughout rural and metro areas. Thirteen years ago, the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League started with three teams and 30 kids. This year's state-sanctioned finals, held June 25 at the Minneapolis Gun Club in Prior Lake, featured more than 300 elite shooters competing in front of 1,500 fans.

Neal and Theresa Klassen, who farm 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans in Swift County, say they're still learning the sport. Besides cheering every spring for their kids and neighbors on the Benson High School trap team, they're supporting three of their children — Anthony, Miranda and Ava — in their quest for All-America status through the Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA). Anthony, 16, won second-team honors a year ago and will close out this year's season next week in Ackley, Iowa, with a chance to repeat.

Like other youth club sports, All-America trapshooting requires extensive travel to meets held year-round from coast to coast. In trap, you can shoot in as many sanctioned tournaments as you want, submitting your top seven scores. Neal said his family's budget allows for only seven trips, so every shot counts.

Besides road-tripping in the family camper once a year to the Grand American in Illinois, where miles of trap houses line an abandoned coal mine, they regularly travel to North Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Arizona for a meet in Tucson that's wedged between winter and spring high school sports. Anthony wrestles and plays baseball while Miranda plays volleyball, hockey and softball.

"Sometimes the Tucson trip means skipping a week of school,'' Neal said.

His kids aren't the best shooters in Minnesota, let alone the country, but they have turned heads. Ava, 11, first shouldered a 12-guage on July 2 on a family jaunt to the Alexandria Shooting Park in Douglas County.

She rocked backwards on her first two shots, missing badly. She turned to her dad and said, "I don't want to do this.'' On her very next shot, she destroyed the target and was hooked. One month later at the Grand American, Ava won "high lady'' honors in her class of shooters in a segment of competition that incorporates shots from longer distances.

"A lot of Minnesota kids did well down there and they [the Klassens] really tore it up,'' said Sally Stevens, an advanced shotgun coach from Buffalo. She knows the family and said the parents are as supportive as anyone could be.

Theresa Klassen said her fondness for the sport goes beyond its requirements of dedication and concentration to become a dead-eye shooter. In ATA events, contestants of all ages and walks of life shoot beside each other, five at a time. They accumulate points individually to gain rankings in their respective class. A small percentage of shooters from around the country make the final cut as first- or second-team All Americas.

"It teaches them a lot of respect for people in general, and of all ages,'' Theresa said. "A lot of the older people get to know the kids. They come up and talk, giving them pointers and tips.''

One day when Anthony was dejected about missing shots as a 10-year-old, trapshooting superstar Harlan Campbell Jr. of Kansas happened to be sitting nearby. He introduced himself and told the youngster that everyone has bad days. "You actually beat me today by one shot,'' he told Anthony.

Years later at another event, a highly accomplished young shooter from Missouri by the name of Samantha Foppe invited Miranda to shoot for fun. Miranda was nervous and brand new to the sport, but she went along. After missing every single shot in 50 attempts, Samantha took her for ice cream.

"This sport is filled with good people,'' Neal said. "They are as down to earth as they can be.''

Besides shooting trap, all three Klassen kids are involved in 4-H and Future Famers of America. Anthony spent half a day this week at the Swift County Fair, checking in livestock entrants.

His ambition beyond ATA competition is to shoot competitively in college. Miranda is working her way toward All-America status while Ava is now content with the long-term prospects of outshooting her brother and sister. They all say the best thing about youth trapshooting is the friendships they build while on their team and on the road, in between contests.

"My kids, naturally, they like to compete,'' Neal said. "But they also like meeting the other kids and adults. They're having a lot of fun shooting.''