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Show Wildlife Federation Sponsors Big Trap Shoot Friday At 6 p.m. A shooting exhibition filled with plenty of thrills is in store for interested sportsmen Friday at 6 p.m. at the shooting; ranee one-half mile east of the mouth of Hobble Creek canyon. The big event will feature Bill and Fran Johnson, two of the world's greatest great-est marksmen and will be sponsored spon-sored by the Springville Wildlife federation. Keith Weight is general gen-eral chairman of the event. Lane W. "Bill" Johnson squeezed a trigger for the first time when he was only five years old,, and bought his first 22 rifle at the age of nine. When he was eleven he started shooting at targets thrown in the air. He was a good quail shot by the time he was thirteen, and when he reached eighteen he was a complete bug on firearms having expanded his gun collection until he possessed two 22 rifles, two shotguns and one 22 revolver. "Fran" joined the Bill and Fran Johnson shooting team when Mrs. Lane W. Johnson (Fran) first started star-ted exhibition shooting with Bill in 1936. Bill started her off with hand guns and then introduced her to shotguns and rifles,- both 22 and high power. Fran is an excellent duck shot, holds her own on pheasants, phea-sants, and has done her share of big game hunting. During World War II Bill and Fran gave shooting exhibitions for the armed forces at more than 400 service camps, for the purpose of demonstrating the proper handling of firearms. It is estimated that their demonstrations were wit-' nessed by nearly two million GI's. Splitting a 38 caliber bullet on the edge of a hunting knife is one of Fran's most spectacular shots in the exhibition program. She hits the edge of the blade with the center cen-ter of the bullet and splits the bullet in two. One half goes to the right and the other to the left, breaking two balloons. Bill's most difficult shot is throwing five clay targets in the air and breaking them before they hit the ground with a 20 guage Remington Model 31 five-shot pump action shotgun. While this requires extremely fast shooting, very few who see the stunt think it difficult, because Bill makes it look so easy. But not according to Bill Johnson who says, "No wonder servicemen who used the Model 31 in the aerial gunnery training program pro-gram dubbed it 'the pump gun with the ball-bearing action!" The public is invited to see this outstanidng exhibition of marksmanship. |