Warren Cheek, a member of the National Championship Match Operations staff since the 1960s whose career at the NRA went on to include a combined 27 years as Director of Training and Secretary of the Association, assumed Match Director responsibilities in 1974 along with Stanley Mate, a fellow NRA employee who had also served several years on the Match Operations staff. Both men assisted Match Director Louis Lucas in 1973 and their experience made for a smooth transition as they headed up a program that accommodated more than 2,500 competitors.
Experience was also a valued commodity on the firing lines because unpredictable weather—so much a part of the Camp Perry culture—was a major match component in the summer of 1974. Veterans and former champions did the best job navigating their way to the awards podium and the first to display this adeptness was Army Sgt. Hershel Anderson, the defending national pistol champion who dominated every phase of the 1974 program. After capturing the Warm-Up Aggregate, Anderson hit his stride and won all three championship aggregates, two with record scores, to claim his second national title with a 2657-150X. The President’s Pistol Match also belonged to Anderson, whose success with the .45 in center-fire competition helped popularize the use of the government auto as an effective wind neutralizer.
Anderson’s Army team was also successful by wide margins in both its NRA Aggregate and National Trophy Team title defenses, as was fellow Army shooter Barbara Hile, who won her fourth straight women’s national championship. This year also marked the first of seven straight senior titles for noted gunsmith Gil Hebard, while the National Trophy Individual honor went to 1972 national champion Bonnie Harmon.
Established names in smallbore shooting flexed their muscle this year as 515 prone and 420 position competitors pumped nearly half a million .22-caliber bullets downrange. And with just enough wind and rain on the first day of prone to make things interesting, no one escaped the conditions unscathed. Veteran Maj. Presley Kendall took the early lead and by the end of the iron phase, it was his consistency that garnered him the metallic-sight championship at nine points down. The any-sight matches gave all a breather from the serious wind doping that was required over the first two days and more 400 scores appeared on the results bulletins. Tom Whitaker, the 1969 national prone champion, won the any-sight sub-aggregate with a perfect 3200 but on the final day, it was Kendall in the title hunt along with Maj. Dennis Dingman of the Army Reserve. Through a soupy mirage that made spotting shots near impossible, Kendall held on to win by one and regained the title he lost to Lones Wigger, Jr., the year before.
For Kendall, it was a momentous victory. Bill Woodring had won three straight prone titles from 1936 to 1938 and the closest anyone had come to matching the feat was G. Wayne Moore’s back-to-back wins in 1946 and 1947. While Kendall’s wins were not consecutive, he still became just the second person in National Match history to win three prone titles (1962, 1972 and 1974).
Schuyler Helbing managed to outdistance both iron-sight champion Edie Plimpton and any-sight winner Mary Stidworthy for the women’s title and Remington Trophy that she took home just days before her 16th birthday while John Moschkau, who won it all in 1957, finished as the 1974 high senior. (Edie Plimpton, now Fleeman, is a member of the NRA Board of Directors.)
The first day of position firing was accompanied by winds so strong that they whipped Lake Erie into a white-capped froth. In the second metallic-sight match, veteran John Foster was able to withstand the gusts and let offs better than anyone, but even he could only post a 763-34X winning score. Marine CWO Greg Connor nibbled away at Foster’s lead and posted his own win in one of the any-sight matches, but in the process neither one noticed Wigger making his move.
Foster and Wigger, two firing points apart, faced off in the final match and held pretty even through three of the positions before Foster’s 193 kneeling score sealed his fate. Wigger fired a 199 and when factored into his 3131-179X total, an eighth position title was his. Former junior champion Bill Schweitzer earned civilian honors while Dale Cox topped the juniors and Gloria Parmentier was named women’s champion.
The pattern of national champions returning to the winner’s podium this year ended when high power shooters took to the line. The only repeat winner was Gerritt Stekeur, who defended his senior crown, but when the President’s and Nevada Trophy Match Aggregate scores were tallied, Jack Sicola joined the elite list of national high power champions. Sicola, who won the President’s Match, fired his Winchester Model 70 to victory and added a Leech Cup honor for good measure during long-range competition.
Marine Gunnery Sgt. Daniel Sanchez won the Nevada Trophy Aggregate and was named service champion while teammate Greg Connor, who had challenged for smallbore position honors earlier in the program, captured the prestigious Wimbledon Cup with his Hart-barreled Remington 40X. Charles Bover of the Navy was the 1974 National Trophy Rifle Champion while Army shooters claimed the team event for the fourth straight year.
1974 National Matches Fact
“The M16 rifle or commercial equivalent may be used in National Trophy Rifle Matches and in NRA High Power Championship Matches.”
—1974 NRA National Rifle and Pistol Championships Program
In 1974, the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice announced its approval of the commercial version of the U.S. Rifle 7.62 mm M14, for use in Board-sponsored Excellence in Competition “Leg” Matches, effective immediately.
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