Photo: Jim Dean
Posted on 01/28/2011 6:57:38 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Rebecca Godwin has never flown on an airplane.
But she'll get her chance Feb. 17 when she travels to Albuquerque, N.M., to compete in the Marine Corps JROTC Service Championship.
The sophomore was the lone member of the North Forsyth High rifle team to qualify for the national competition.
Gunnery Sgt. Jack "Gunny" Snook leads the team, which is part of the county's only JROTC program. He said based on qualifying scores, Godwin is ranked third in the nation.
Snook said she's reached scores as high as 292 during practice sessions. A perfect score is 300.
She's also one of just two girls on the shooting team, which this year is made up largely of freshmen and sophomores after the departure of five seniors from 2010.
"The team is young this year," Snook said.
While there may not be many of them, he said the female students are tops on the team.
"My No. 1 and No. 2 shooters are girls," he said, adding that in general "girls are better shooters."
"They're more patient. If they screw up, they just say 'oh well' and move on."
Godwin said she was surprised to learn she would be competing at nationals.
"I was shocked at first and then really, really excited," she said.
This is Godwin's second year on the team, but she got some inspiration and help from her older brother, Brandon, a 2010 North graduate who is currently at Air Force boot camp.
Both Godwins competed with the team last year as it qualified to compete in the national competition.
"He was on the team and said I should try it," she said. "I did, and I loved it. I had never shot before."
Shooting for them is "kind of a family thing," she added.
Their stepsister, Morgan Hubert, is the other girl on the team, though Rebecca Godwin hopes her younger sister, who's in the eighth grade, will decide to join them next year.
But until then, she will carry the shooting torch to New Mexico, where she'll go against students from some 400 Marine Corps JROTC schools.
And she's also pretty happy about that plane ride.
"It'll be my first time in an airplane, so that's almost as exciting as competing," she said.
Good for her...N. Forsyth is in my school district and I’m actually surprised they still have rifle competition in H.S.
Shoot like a girl, if you can. Outstanding!
Bring the kids to an Appleseed!
I sure hope she gets to fly IN the airplane rather than on it.
I hope she doesn’t take that photo to school. She could get suspended for it!
It's a good thing.
American TV networks covering the Olympic Games refrain from reporting on shooting sports, except for such combined events such as triathlon where rifle marksmanship is integrated with other elements. Could this be a result of anti-firearm bias?
Yup. According to the MSM, guns are only good for killing the people (conservatives) they don’t like. That their minority “victims” are the principal perpetrators of crimes against other minorities isn’t even on their radar.
I can see it now— some guys are gonna get beat by a girl.
Air rifle? Very cute, but what are they using for 300-meters?? Did I miss something?
They just seem to be calmer about the whole idea of shooting and more willing to to learn and listen.
The girls from Georgia do consistently well, in the junior program, nationally.
April Dunn of East Coweta HS in Sharpsburg, Georgia won the overall JROTC Individual National Championship in the precision class with an aggregate plus final average of 1263.15. She was also part of the four person precision team National Champion.
Here in a couple of hours, I’ll be taking my daughter to the county range for the orientation meeting for the 4H shooting sports team! She wants to shoot rifle, and since they are talking about putting together a bb target team, I’ve talked her into looking at that as well.
We’re gonna carry along her new rifle that she got for Christmas, and also my newly aquired Mosin-Nagant (that oughta wake everybody up!).
Yes.
That's the pic from the link in the first post.
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