History

All of the information below about the history of the Troy Deary Gun Club was submitted by late club member Darlene McKenzie. 

In 1947, Harold Hansen, Norman Berg, Carl Milton, Harold Milton, Jamie Arnot, and Dave Morton bought a manual hand thrower. They would go out to the Troy city dump and have fun. The targets were bought through "Jensen-Byrd" from Spokane. 

In 1948, those same people got organized with some people from Deary and started a gun club. 

On March 19, 1948, acting chairman Ed Solberg opened the meeting and introduced Tom Felton who gave a talk on club organization and recommended incorporation along with the carrying of liability insurance. 

On April 12, 1948, the club was incorporated and had liability insurance. The directors were elected as follows: Bill Sumner - President; Archie Johnson - Vice President; Dave Morton - Secretary/Treasurer; Jerry Lawrence - Director; James Arnot - Director. Membership dues were ten dollars. 

After discussion of a suitable site for the club, they settled on leasing the ground on Dry Creek from Ray Johnson for 10 years with an option. 

A name for the club was needed and the proposals were: Deary-Troy Gun Club; Dry Creek Gun Club; Hit and Miss Gun Club; and Troy-Deary Gun Club. Troy-Deary Gun Club was selected after a motion retracting the name Deary-Troy Gun Club. 

The club hired a man to pour concrete and build a trap. 

Dan and Darlene McKenzie moved to Troy in 1952 and began shooting at the Troy-Deary Gun Club. (Dan was a charter member of the Culdesac Gun Club.) At the time, the clubhouse at Troy-Deary Gun Club was a small building that was approximately ten feet long and eight feet wide. It had a wood stove and a card table inside. Boards were used for walkways. 

Al Galloway of Bovill was the best shooter of the time. He was boss at the Joslin Pole Yard. He came to the area from Montana where he had won the Montana State Doubles championship. 

At the first Turkey Shoot Darlene remembered, they set up a 12'-15' tent in six to eight inches of snow. Edith Archibald and Darlene cooked inside the tent on a wood stove. Everyone crowded inside the tent to stay warm and they ran out of food. 

The present clubhouse was moved to the current site in 1960. It was originally a Potlatch logging camp bunkhouse on Camp 43 at Weitas Creek, south of Elk River, Idaho. The members of the club - farmers, loggers, and businessmen - used farm trucks with dollies and hauled it in sections. Some of the members who helped were Archie Johnson, Dan McKenzie, Jim Arnot, Ruben Johnson, Dave Morton, Jerry Lawrence, and Norman Lewis. 

After the new clubhouse was set up, the club began having crab feeds in February of each year with good turnouts. 

The Troy-Deary Gun Club was one of the original members of the Camas Prairie Trapshooting association even though they weren't allowed to vote for some time. Dan McKenzie shot the first Camas Prairie Shoot in 1954 and Darlene shot the second. 

"Trapshooting has been real good for us as the whole family shoots. Can't believe Dan became the President of the A.T.A. - anything can happen." -Darlene McKenzie

The following letter was submitted on December 23, 2011, by Allen Hokanson and was published on TDGC's website with his permission:

Just a note to let you know I just became aware of your Troy-Deary Gun Club website. I was raised in Troy and knew all the members listed in the Charter Member list (see above). Mick Kansteiner is my father-in-law. I was never able to join the club because by the time I was 18 and eligible, I was in college and too busy and broke to participate. 

I would like to pass on the following story about two of those members, Dave Morton and Gunder Reierson. Dave decided to set up a gun safety class at the Troy High School in about 1957 and enlisted Gunder's help as his assistant. They came to the school several times and Dave made an excellent presentation on firearms in general and gun safety. They concluded the class by taking us to the range and letting us shoot a regular 50' indoor .22 prone position match. This was before they put up the large Potlatch building so they conducted their indoor .22 shooting competition in the Troy High School's old gym. (Can you imagine the uproar if someone tried to use a school facility as a gun range today?) Dave had served with the Marines in the South Pacific in WWII and was a real expert, having lots of experience with firearms. Dave was also a determined, no-nonsense type of man that knew how to hold the class's attention. 

This was before the States had a formal hunter education program and may have been one of the first classes conducted. 

A few months after the class was over, the local game warden, Hale Ebling, caught some of us students shooting at ground squirrels out a car window along the highway. The chewing out we got from Hale was mild compared to the one we got from Dave when he found out about what we had done. 

I became a hunter education instructor in Oregon and was an active instructor from 1978 to 1996. I always considered Dave my mentor and whenever I was planning a classroom session or answering a student's question, I often asked myself, "How would Dave have done this?"

I am now retired and living in Hermiston, OR. 

-Allen Hokanson

Editor's Note: The first mandatory hunter education program began in New York in 1949. The International Hunter Education Association (IHEA) was formed in 1972 and standardized hunter education across the states. In 1979, the Idaho Hunter Education Law was passed, requiring hunters born on or after January 1, 1975, to complete a hunter education course.