The Post-Journal

Gals And Guns In Limelight Here

Shooting experts down Kentucky way talk in whispers about the twin Conroy girls who are the sharpest things with a rifle to come out of the Bluegrass Hills since Ol’ Daniel Boone.

But we Yankees will have you Southern Gentlemen understand, suh, we’ve got a couple of petite deadeye queens up here in the nawth, who can look down a gun barrel with the best of them.

One is Marilyn Gould. The other is Sue Kahle.

Both, incidentally, are leading the men and the boys in club percentages. Marilyn, a registered nurse at W. C. A. Hospital, Tuesday night clinched the individual championship of the Jamestown Rifle Club. Marilyn is also among the top five in the Chautauqua County Rifle League, led by Gene Davis of Clymer.

And that’s no mean feat because the CCRL boasts some pretty accurate hombres who have been shooting guns most of their lives. And “their lives” take in quite a span because some of these old boys have voted in several presidential elections

“Yep, she sure beat me out, on the final night,’ George Hale laughed yesterday describing Marilyn’s feat of topping the club for the first time. “She got me by three in off-hand.”

Finished With 291 Average

Miss Gould finished with a 291 average and Hale was second with 288.

Marilyn’s best one-night effort came this season when she shot a 293 against Mayville.

Marilyn has been a gun enthusiast as long as she can remember. She started on Coach Richard Giddings” high school team at Bradford and later fired for a Rochester team while attending the University of Rochester. After the family (Mr. & Mrs. Harold Gould of Lakewood) moved to the Jamestown area, Marilyn hunted up Jamestown Rifle Club officials and volunteered her deadly aim to the team’s cause.

At Bradford, she led the team that won the national high school title and as she developed into a top-flight gunner, she took the trek to the mecca of gundom—the Camp Perry tournament in 1956 where she came within two points of making the United States Olympic team.

On National Title Team

Bradford, in fact, finished first once and second on two occasions in the national competition. Marilyn was fourth indoors and fifth in outdoor firing among 4,000 rounds of the country’s best on those occasions.

The veterans Hale, Pete Shaka and others have helped her correct flaws and now Marilyn’s ambition is another crack at the Camp Perry meet.

Miss Gould shoots a Winchester Model C, a heavy gun that weighs in the neighborhood of 14 pounds without scope.

All which adds up to the matter-of-fact little Gould gal coming along way as a shooter considering she had six brothers, none of which were allowed to own a rifle.

Now Marilyn thinks her pupil, Sue Kahle, is coming along the same path to shooting prominence.

Sue Kahle Has 184 Average

Sue, 16, a student at Jamestown High School, packs a 184 average, which is terrific in junior competition.

Miss Kahle and her best friend, Rena Anderson, are the only two girls shooting on the Junior club where Marilyn Gould serves as an instructor and Kenneth Herburg as a supervisor. The other dozen members are boys.

Jerry McManus was leading the club averages until he went into the Coast Guard, then Sue stepped up to top spot. She’s held it ever since, almost invariably leading the weekly shoots.

Sue, the daughter of Mrs. Lucille Kahle, 811 Spring, shoots a 22 caliber Mossberg. Juniors do not use scopes. Her best one-night effort was a 188 out of a possible 200.

Like Marilyn, Sue who has been shooting about two years, is looking ahead to adult competition. She too, hopes to compete nationally and those who know guns and know the accurate miss, say she is already a long way toward her goal.


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