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With county fair season upon us, a common 4-H project youth participate in is shooting sports. Kansas 4-H state shooting sports specialist Chandra Plate explains the different opportunities within the project.

“We have 10 4-H projects in Kansas for 4-H shooting sports, and on a nationwide basis, we also have 10 4-H projects. So the 10 4-H projects that we have are archery. In Kansas, we do both compound archery and recurve archery,” said Plate. “And then we have air pistol, air rifle, BB gun, hunting skills, muzzle loader, pistol, rifle, shotgun, western heritage. And those are our 10 4-H projects. For pistol and rifle, those are both small bore pistol and small bore rifle.”

Volunteers in 4-H shooting sports receive extensive training over a full weekend, typically starting Saturday morning and running through Sunday afternoon, with some sessions beginning Friday evening depending on the discipline. Each volunteer trains in only one discipline, such as archery, hunting skills, or muzzleloader. The training includes both discipline-specific instruction and youth development education. Safety is the top priority, followed closely by preparing volunteers to support positive youth development.

Plate says not every county in Kansas has 4-H shooting sports, so if you’re interested you’ll need to contact your local extension office and find out if they have 4-H shooting sports. If they don’t, she says you can contact the counties around you to see if they do.

For more information on 4-H shooting sports, visit kansas4-h.org.