Pictured are Macie Page with her parents Clinton and Courtney (center), Gun Club President Larry Hampton (left), and Sporting Clays Group Lead Mike Ferris (right). (Photo by Dick Remski)
Denton’s own Macie Page speaks to the Robson Ranch Gun Club. (Photo by Dick Remski)
Mike Moss
The most recent Robson Ranch Gun Club monthly meeting featured a gem of a guest speaker from the local region. Joining us to talk about her shooting sport (called Helice) was Argyle’s Liberty Christian High School senior and reigning two-time United States Helice Ladies National Champion, Macie Page.
Ms. Page was featured recently in an article in our local The Cross Timbers Gazette, whereupon no less than a half-dozen Gun Club members declared, “We have to get her in here to talk to us!” With the help of her number-one fans (and financial sponsors!), her parents Clinton and Courtney Page, Macie came to our clubhouse to share her knowledge and experiences. That’s right, the highschooler teaching us “active 55+” folks a few things! You’d think with a 400+ person club full of lifelong shooters and a Sporting Clays group of nearly 100 members (over a dozen of which shoot every week) that we’d know a little about Helice, but no! Said most of the club, “What the heck is Helice?”
Macie commented, and her father confirmed, that this was her first “public presentation,” which is hard to believe, because her talk was simply excellent. Macie ran us through a description of Helice, a shotgun shooting sport originating in Europe and invented to create a more realistic “bird” target, accomplished by using rotating “wings” on the disc. She explained how the range differs from skeet and trap: the range layout, the way the “birds” come out randomly from one of the five boxes, the shooting distances, what constitutes a “good hit,” etc. From the Dallas Gun Club, Macie started shooting at 9 years old and started competing at 12, and already she is the U.S. top-ranked Female Helice Shooter, 2021 and 2022 U.S. Helice Ladies National Champion, Captain of the U.S. Helice Team, and Silver Medalist at this past fall’s international competition in Sicily, Italy. Macie shared her experiences from that trip and competition, including her hysterical encounter with the language barrier.
As expected, before the meeting was even over, many of our Gun Club Clays shooters were already talking about giving Helice a try! Amiable, articulate, and obviously very talented, we look forward to hearing about Ms. Page’s successes for years to come. After Macie’s amazing presentation, we all felt glad to see such a bright future for shooting sports.
The mission of our Robson Ranch Gun Club is to provide an opportunity and forum for our members to meet, share their interest in firearms, participate in various forms of shooting sports, and provide a learning environment for all skill levels of firearm ownership and uses. Our monthly meeting is the second Tuesday of the month at 1 p.m. in the clubhouse. Safety is always our primary concern and is a shared responsibility of each member.
For more information, please contact Club President Larry Hampton at [email protected] or Vice President Mike Moss at [email protected].