Posted on 05/05/2006 11:38:52 PM PDT by tarawa
When guns and schools were pals By Mike Moore
Time to settle up on a bet.
It started with a conversation I had in a Downtown bar a couple of weeks back. A guy tried to convince me when he'd gone to Mitchell Middle School, there was a shooting range in the basement.
He saw my skeptical eyes narrow into that "How many have you had?" look. He suggested I try to confirm it.
Possibly, if I'd read my buddy Chris Bennett's Glad You Asked column about another old range, I'd have believed the story right away. But the guy described more than the thing's existence. He remembered students traipsing into the school office to get the guns.
Could be that sounded foreign because I've adapted already to the world of ID badges and students emptying backpacks at metal detectors. Yes, that's the same world where rule-happy principals feel compelled to throw the book at students who carry butter knives to home-ec class. But it's also the world where "Columbine" has instant name recognition.
So I took the case. Besides, the odds were double if I won.
First, I stopped at the school, on Racine's south side. Principal Bob Wilhelmi said he'd heard rumors of the range, but that there's no shooting down there now. Only dust bombs skipping from box to box in storage.
A couple of phone calls sent me into a bit of a time warp, with each person referring me to the previous Mitchell principal. Finally, I reached Wally Stenavich, who was principal in the late 1950s or so and still lives in the area. Was there really a shooting range in the basement? "I helped build it," he said.
An industrial arts teacher oversaw the construction of it and started a rifle club league. Stenavich was a student in 1939 and got involved in one of the teams.
Later, as a teacher and principal, he took over the teams.
Dang, my payoff was in danger. The only chance I had left was to squeeze by on a technicality. I asked Stenavich if the guns were stored in the office, as I'd heard.
Sure, he said. And we're not talking the air rifles that some schools compete with today, the ones that barely give crows a tickle.
"At the time, the U.S. Army was encouraging these things, and they supplied us with the rifles," he said.
Not quite like picking up a hall pass.
"It wasn't the tightest control, kids in and out of the office," Stenavich said, but he didn't remember any problems or injuries.
The range had more features than the one at Horlick High School, he said. A separate door to the outside kept teams from disturbing the nighttime activities upstairs.
I'm assuming it was soundproofed somewhat, although a well-timed "BOOM" can really liven up a PTA meeting.
The rifle teams from various schools would compete, which produced an occasional battle of the sexes. Stenavich remembered the time one cocky boys' team got beat by an all-girls team.
"They concentrated a little better after that," he said.
The spirit of competition is stuck in Stenavich's bloodline. His grandson Adam, from Marshfield, has a shot to be an NFL offensive lineman after signing with the Carolina Panthers this week as a rookie free agent.
The competition was secondary at the range, though.
"Our main purpose was to teach gun safety," Stenavich said, "and hunting was a big thing during that time."
After he moved on, Stenavich said, nobody was there to oversee the program. The rifles were sent to an armory in St. Louis.
I suggested 21st century America would never allow this. To him, that's a sad thought.
"We've become paranoid in this world," he said. "But I have a lot of confidence in our kids."
And I have a little more confidence in barroom storytelling.
This was during regular classroom hours at 1:00 p.m. on Fridays for eight weeks, IIRC.
For the final test we brought our guns to school; and had to show the instructor that we could handle, load, and shoot the gun correctly. The class was mandatory, the shooting part was optional. Naturally, all of the guys opted for the qualifying test; most of the girls as well. We were rewarded with the "Hunter Safety Patch."
The shooting test even occurred on school property...horror of horrors!!
My high school had a rifle team in a Pittsburgh suburb (Mt.Lebanon) in 1962.
Approximately 500 schools nationwide have rifle teams (as of 1999)
High School Rifle Teams Draw Fire
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a383a9b5f0881.htm
Chicago school system dropped Junior ROTC marksmanship classes in 33 schools.
Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas wondered: "How can we have a zero-tolerance policy that severely disciplines students for being caught with a gun in school or on the street while we're teaching marksmanship?"
Some of the boys at my small rural grade school would bring their guns to go hunting with friends after school. The bus driver would have them leave the gun up front with him. It was left in the bus all day. Riding another bus home with the pal, no problem, just transfer the gun to the other bus driver when arriving at school. We only had three buses. And, those wonderful ole farmers driving those buses were some great men. I sure do miss those days.
I had riflery all through HS (early 70's). We did the NRA stuff with the bars, expert, and all that. I had already been through all that before in summer camp up in Maine, since around age 9.
In the late 1930's, my father in-law and his small posse of ten year olds, would get on a metro bus in Washington DC with rifles in tow, to shoot at targets in rock creek park. No one blinked an eye.
His school system is so full of drugs and disrespect for authority. The real issue is that the school system under his control is a disgrace.
It is a shame we have become an uptight, paranoid society that restricts the freedom of normal people while sociopathic thuggery is celebrated in popular culture. The left has broken down social norms with the idea that unrestrained behavior would make people "free." This unrestrained behavior has led to unrestrained violence, as it is taboo to teach children right from wrong. The left's answer to this is "zero tolerance" where a child using a butter knife at lunch is treated like a criminal, while on the other hand gangs that shoot people are winked at and violent entertainment is encouraged.
These days I can't bring a rifle within 500 yards of either the high school or the elementary school where we practiced.
I do remember that we had a shooting club in Jr - Sr high school as well as designated smoking areas with snack and coke machines. And, many guys also carried a buck knife in a holser on thier belts.
Times sure have changed, "the man" has taken away all these rights of passage towards adulthood and things have only gotten worse.
Same here...We had to leave the guns in the principal's office...But not for safety's sake...Some thought me might skip out early to shoot some of them rabbits...
This is clearly not the same America we grew up in.
I had a shotgun in my dorm room.
Students were the only hunters allowed to dove hunt on the Ag school fields.
I transferred to another school in another state where the same policy was in effect.
While not actually promoted, there was no phobia.
He didn't just teach history he collected it. And he brought his collections to school to illustrate his lessons.
A class on the civil war was complete with uniforms, equipment, and WEAPONS.
Thankfully he has passed away many years ago. It would break his heart to see what has become of the school he served so well.
It's pretty much not America at all, IMHO. There isn't any America any more. Not really. The Commies subtly overthrew us in the 1960's, and we'll never get it back.
Early to mid-70's shot indoor smallbore in the basement range of Montgomery Blair HS.
My neighbors boys shoot on a local HS team, they use precision air rifles. That does make sense to me, not because they're not "real guns" but there is no need for special facilities, just 10 meters and a pellet trap. The range I shot at had such bad ventilation I probably lost 20 IQ points just from breathing the lead dust.
I wonder if the wimp that wrote this knows that scholastic and collegiate shooting are the only sports that have never had an instance of participant or spectator violence. That member of shooting teams typically have much higher levels of scholastic achievement too.
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