USA shoot, youth day continue popularity

The annual USA Boilermakers Kansas City Sporting Clays Shoot once again didn’t disappoint for competing sportsmen and sportswomen. The 2023 event brought 138 Boilermakers and friends to Powder Creek Shooting Park in Lenexa, Kansas, on September 16, followed by the second-annual USA Boilermakers Get Youth Outdoors Day.

The sporting clays competition is a major fundraiser for the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance, long supported by the Boilermakers union. This year marked its 14th event and brought in $133,980 to support USA’s mission to “unite the union community through conservation to preserve North America’s outdoor heritage.”

This year, 31 teams competed, each firing 100 rounds per person along the course’s stations. Stations and prizes were sponsored by a variety of local lodges and organizations.

A team of four Local 92 members trekked to the event from Los Angeles for the third year in a row. When the L-92 Boilermakers first participated in 2021, they had no previous sporting clays experience.

“It’s important for us to come out to this event to show union solidarity—not just within our union, but with other affiliates here, other trades,” said L-92 Business Manager Luis Miramontes. “We like to come out and support the organization and the event. We love this event. We’re from the city, from L.A., so we’re not used to seeing this—all the greenery.”

Participating in the event inspired L-92 to create a turkey shoot back home in California for Boilermaker families as a way to build camaraderie. Local 92 also sent 10 members to participate in an IBEW USA shoot in Southern California.

Jay Rojo, inspector and business representative for L-92, said: “It’s nice to see that brotherhood goes beyond just our union, beyond the jobsite and goes out throughout the country. When we get events like this it expands the brotherhood into all unions.”

Rojo stayed an extra day to volunteer with the Boilermakers Get Youth Outdoors Day.

 “I wanted to show up and help these kids have a wonderful day,” said Rojo, who helped kids ages four to 15 learn to shoot sporting clays.

Now in its second year and part of other USA events, the youth day first launched as part of the previous year’s sporting clays competition. The event is free of charge and provides area kids with one-on-one lessons in archery, shooting sporting clays, and fishing, as well as goodie bags, prizes and lunch. Fishing was a new activity this year.

“Back home, I live in a concrete covered city—nearly every kid has a cell phone in their hand,” Rojo said. “The beauty of this event is to encourage children of all ages to get into the great outdoors and leave the electronics behind and really enjoy nature. Every single kid had eyes wide open and was completely engaged and making some great memories. I loved seeing all the kids have such a great time—and with many of them doing one of these activities for the very first time.”

The Boilermakers union is a charter member of the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance. Free membership is available to all Boilermaker members.