“The [Arthur D.] Little Report, issued last year and ignored by [Sen. Edward] Kennedy, concludes: ‘The aspects of the program which relates to the stimulation of broader interest and participation in rifle shooting among the youth of our country should be emphasized more and pursued even more effectively.’”
—Port Clinton Herald, July 1967
The 1966 National Match picture was transformed by the increased deployment of the U.S. military in Vietnam. The participant ratio favored civilians two-to-one over service competitors, and reservists accounted for more than half of the support personnel, when a good number of regular servicemembers found themselves on firing lines in the Asian jungles rather than those along Lake Erie.
While the procurement of sufficient staffing was ongoing, the brewing debate over whether the National Matches were worthy of federal support neared a boiling point. Inadequate funds would have sent the program into disarray, but the nearly $500,000 National Board appropriation and $2 million ammunition provision remained intact. And the staffing issue was addressed when Match Director Col. Sidney Carpenter returned for his fourth year at Camp Perry and oversaw a modified calendar to accommodate the reservists’ limited number of days on active duty. Specifically, the high power rifle schedule was shortened by four days when one day of the Small Arms Firing School and the preliminary matches were canceled. The National Rifle Association of America’s Members, Herrick and Roumanian Matches were not fired either, although they were later conducted during a tournament at the Black Canyon Range in Phoenix, Arizona, in December 1966. Another modification included the firing of the National Board Infantry Trophy Match before the NRA matches, rather than at the very end of the tournament, as had been the custom.
Changes also took place during the pistol and smallbore phases, but they were not all restrictive. In pistol, a President’s Hundred was established by the NRA as a special 900-point aggregate comprising the three National Match Course championships. The Navy’s Donald Hamilton won the inaugural title and congratulatory letter from the President of the United States, plus a Hi-Standard Olympic Military Model pistol. Additionally, the top 100 finishers received metallic brassards.
Hamilton was also awarded the Clarke Trophy for winning the center-fire championship and in the end, his 2629-114X topped the field for his second straight national title. Though Hamilton’s total was 20 points less than what he fired in 1965, poor weather affected scores across the board and five-time champion Bill Blankenship found himself in the runner-up position for the second consecutive year. But true to his championship form, Blankenship bounced back in the National Individual Trophy Match where he notched an unprecedented third straight win. Army Capt. Sallie Carroll reclaimed the women’s NRA national title, Don Nygord topped the civilians and the seniors were led for the third straight year by Col. Walter Walsh. In addition, the Army swept the NRA team championship matches in convincing fashion, while Air Force shooters finished atop the National Team Trophy event.
There was a certain familiarity about the 1966 national smallbore championships, yet there was change, too. The venue was the same, many of the names were the same, but the prone course of fire had reverted to the “Double Critchfield” course last fired in 1960. The restoration of a fourth 1600 made the match more challenging and gave it a more familiar feel, as most shooters were used to a daily 1600. The position championship course of fire was doubled to a 3200-point aggregate, but most of the names on the awards bulletin stayed the same from the previous year.
As the iron sight prone matches played out, names like Donna Hanson, Walt Tomsen, Barry Trew, Dave Kimes, Wally Lyman, Karl Kenyon and Joseph Barnes, Jr., topped the results bulletins. After the clatter of the adding machines and typewriters in the statistical shack died down, there was probably no one more anxious than Barnes, the chain-smoking rifleman from Branchville, New Jersey, to see if he had performed a National Match feat never before accomplished. In short order, he found that he had run 320 consecutive 10s and 245 Xs for the first-ever 3200 iron sight possible. Inez Sargent still held sway over the women shooters and was in the lead after the first half.
Fort Benning’s (now called Fort Moore) Capt. Don Adams was three points behind Barnes and drew off the momentum from his recent gold medal performance at the World Championships. Adams put together a 400-40X with 25 additional Xs to win the first match and lost a point over the final two days, but his 3199, coupled with his metallic score, gave him the national championship and service laurels with a new National Match record 6396-510X. Sargent edged out scope victor and defending champion Marianne Jensen for the women’s title, while Herb Hollister recaptured his senior title from Rans Triggs and Dan Wood earned his second straight junior title.
There was but little doubt that Lones Wigger was going to repeat in position. The expanded course of fire only gave him that much more opportunity to flex his muscle. He dominated the metallic-sight matches, winning both, and if not for Gary Anderson’s one-point victory in the first any-sight match, Wigger would have swept the events. Perhaps taking umbrage at Anderson’s win, Wigger came back in the final match with a 799-57X out of a possible 800-80X to nail down his second consecutive position championship with a score of 3179-201X. With the victory, Wigger became the first shooter in National Match history to win three position titles (Troy Bassham became the second after wins in 1998, 1999 and 2001), and the three-decade gap between the two occurrences testifies to the degree of difficulty involved, which makes the following fact all the more staggering—over the next 35 years, Wigger racked up another 17 national position titles, a record that is undeniably untouchable.
With the exception of Jack Schweitzer’s win in the junior category, all of the 1965 champions repeated: Wigger took open and service, John Writer earned his third and final collegiate championship, Margaret Thompson earned the women’s title and Robert Dorian locked up his third consecutive senior win.
On the high power rifle front, Army Capt. Merrill Menlove was tabbed the service champion via V-count over teammate Staff Sgt. W.R. Lee. Menlove’s 795-85V was three points better than the high bolt rifle score fired by San Francisco’s Ikey Starks and marked the second consecutive time—the fourth time in seven years—that a service rifle score topped the entire field. Staff Sgt. Barbara Hile and Pauline Tubb won the women’s service and bolt titles, respectively, and for both shooters, it was a return to the winner’s podium. Hile’s win was her fifth in six years, while Tubb regained the title she last held in 1962.
Some service highlights include a one-two finish in the National Board’s Infantry Team Match for the Army and Army Reserve, while junior shooter Jay Higgins of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, fired an issued M14 and finished on top the field of 1,623 competitors in the 20-shot, 200-yard rapid-fire Coast Guard Trophy Match. Perhaps spurred on by their successful Infantry Match performances, Army shooters showed their mettle in the National Team Trophy contest by claiming the Dogs of War Trophy and the Rattlesnake Trophy for High Reserve score. Additionally, the National Individual Match was won by Marine Warrant Officer Michael Pietroforte, the first shooter to win the event twice. Pietroforte won the match in 1958 with the first clean score and, in 1966, he also fired clean with a score of 250-26V.
Among some of the NRA matches fired at longer ranges, there was an equitable mix of civilian and service wins: Air Force Staff Sgt. David Thompson won the President’s Match, the Leech Cup was won by Marine Cpl. Douglas DeHaas, Army Sgt. 1st Class Cecil Stevens took the Wimbledon Cup, Army Cup laurels went to Navy Petty Officer Donald Vaughn, Middleton Tompkins won the Crowell Trophy Match and the Air Force Cup went to Frank Pettenger of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Rumbold and Enlisted Men’s Trophy Matches were the two NRA team events fired in 1966. Both required six-man teams to fire service rifles and the victories were earned by Marine and Army squads, respectively.
1966 National Matches Fact
The NRA Members, Romanian and Herrick matches were fired at the Long-Range Championships in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1966, and in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the following year. In 1965, the Herrick and a new Members’ Trophy match were fired at Camp Perry, while the Herrick was the only one of the three matches to be fired in 1962, 1963 and 1964. The last time all three matches were fired at Camp Perry was in 1961.
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