MARYSVILLE – Alexandra Steyerman is only 11, but today she’ll take aim at gunslingers, horse thieves and other Wild West varmints with her .22-caliber revolver. And she’s pretty likely to hit her target.
Alexandra, known among cowboy shooters as “Dezert Brat,” wore a red cotton outfit trimmed with white ruffles along with her cowboy hat as she raised her gun Friday to practice on clay and metal targets. She handled the gun like a pro and adhered to safety rules intended to keep shooters and spectators from getting hurt.
The Everett girl has been shooting only since May, but already she’s hooked.
She spent a weekend with her grandparents, Rosemary “Lucy Wildrose” and H.R. “Ten Beers” Steyerman, who took her along to a Smokey Point Desperados shooting match as a spectator. Now she’s a junior cowboy shooter.
The Smokey Point Desperados are one of seven Western Washington chapters of the Single Action Shooting Society, an organization with about 60,000 members in six countries. The Marysville Rifle Club’s Standoff at Smokey Point 2004 began Friday and continues through Sunday.
Like groups that re-enact Civil War battles or medieval tournaments, cowboy shooters follow the lore of the Old West, which becomes the backdrop for their events. But their monthly matches involve real shooting competitions with handguns, rifles and shotguns. And then there’s the annual standoff.
“We try to put on the dog for the bigger shoots,” said Michael Perin of Lake Stevens, the match director. “This isn’t the cowboy Olympics. We’re not here to see how far you can run and jump. We’re here to have fun.”
The shooters compete at five stages, which are loosely based on real events and people from history. At each stage, the shooters face an array of targets and must follow a scenario that tests not only their speed and shooting skills but also their memory. They must accurately follow the directions on what to say, what targets to shoot in what order, and the correct procedure on where and how to lay the guns, ever mindful of the ticking timer.
Points are added or deducted from the score for hitting a bonus target, missing a shot or making a procedural misstep, which can happen when a gunslinger is under pressure.
“The timer goes off, and your memory goes with it,” Perin said.
Each cowboy shooter must have a shooting name. For example, there’s Jay “Hedley Lamar” Burleson (of “Blazing Saddles” fame), Bob “Doc Faraday” Wydro and Bill “Pecos Bill Northwest” Drysdale, a reference to another “Pecos Bill in Texas.”
They dress in period costumes as gunslingers, cowgirls, bankers, sheriffs and other characters from the 1800s. Hedley Lamar, for example, was decked out in a blue-and-white pin-striped shirt, brown suspenders, a gun belt at his waist, a sheathed knife on a necklace around his neck, and a band of shotgun shells around his middle.
The stages include whimsical wood cutouts, including props that serve as a livery stable, a graveyard, a jail, a snake pit and a scaffold for lynching. Even the outhouses have names like “Loomis Bank – No deposit too small” and “Shootin’ Gallery.”
This weekend event is Alexandra’s second big event.
“I’m just a little person shooting a big gun,” she said.
Shooters say it’s a family activity and members range from 8 into their 80s.
Wydro has been at it for 10 years after attending a match to watch a friend.
“Everyone looked like they were having so much fun, so I decided to try it. I’ve been doing it ever since. If you are not having fun, you’re doing something wrong,” he said.
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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