Biathletes give lessons to kids in air rifle program

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FORT KENT – With a loud plunking sound, the tin can went flying backward off the small ledge.

“Range closed!” Walt Shepard said, his voice raised so that the five youngsters could hear him – and stop shooting.

Shepard walked 10 meters to the targets at the range here at the Maine Winter Sports Center’s 10th Mountain Lodge. He put the can back on the ledge, setting it up for its next fall.

“OK, let’s make sure everybody’s back behind the gun line,” he said, looking up to make sure he was the only person on the range.

Shepard stepped over the line.

“Now we can say ‘range open’ and we’re ready to go again,” he continued, emphasizing the command that allowed the kids to start shooting again. “Load that clip in again and let’s go.”

Shepard and Tim Burke, both senior-level U.S. biathletes, were working with a group of local children who take advantage of a free program that teaches them how to shoot an air rifle.

The two men were actually filling in one recent evening for the program’s regular leaders, twin sisters Lanny and Tracy Barnes, who were off training at a facility in Lake Placid, N.Y.

The Barnes sisters, also top-level biathlon prospects, have been running the program for the past two summers. They do it to teach the kids how to shoot, become familiar with gun safety, and maybe get them excited about biathlon.

“Our biggest concern with the kids is that they have fun,” Lanny Barnes said. “We do want to try to get them hooked on the sport. But it’s important that they have fun, learn about safety and the different aspects of the sport, and work on social skills.”

The number of kids in the program varies each week based on the weather. Some nights there are more than 20 kids shooting at targets; one recent evening there were just five after a thunderstorm rolled through the St. John Valley.

The Barnes sisters, natives of Durango, Colo., who are training and living at the lodge this summer, coached soccer and skiing out west. So when they decided to make Fort Kent their home base, taking over the air rifle program was a natural.

Air rifles use compressed air to launch a small pellet at targets which are set up about 10 meters away from the gun line. Competitive biathletes shoot at targets 50 meters away.

Although the air rifles malfunctioned frequently and the aim was askew on several of the rifles, the five kids seemed to enjoy themselves.

The kids arrived at the range and immediately started pressing the pellets into clips for the rifles. Burke and Shepard opened the early evening session with a game of soccer to get the youngsters warmed up. The kids each shot a couple of rounds and then played another game in the grassy area in front of the range – the same area that was covered with snow about five months ago and used as a place where world-class biathletes stored equipment bags and mingled before and after races during World Cup competition.

Zach Dube, who shot the tin can off the ledge earlier, has been a regular in the program this summer. Dube’s mother found out about it from a friend whose child was signed up. And Dube also got interested when he watched the World Cup events here last March.

“I like shooting guns and stuff and I like to do physical things,” said Dube, a 10-year-old whose family recently moved from Fort Kent to Castle Hill.

The kids shoot at tin cans, small animal-shaped targets, and paintballs, which are Zach’s favorite.

“It’s pretty fun. I like to shoot them all. I like the paintballs because when you hit them, you know it,” he said. “Anytime you want to get better you can just spread them out until they’re not touching each other anymore and you can just improve.”

The Barnes sisters also emphasize the physical part of the biathlon, mostly through pre-shooting warmup games of soccer and other field sports. Zach enjoyed the afternoon as he showed up to find Lanny and Tracy tossing water balloons off the lodge’s balcony. The kids got their own water balloons to take part in the fun.

Lanny Barnes said the Maine Winter Sports Center also provides roller skis so the youngsters can take a swing on the roller loop.

She added that the MWSC does a lot for kids in the area, for example, running a program in the winter in which kids can rent skis and poles for a small amount and use them all winter. This way parents don’t have to keep buying equipment for growing kids – it’s available for rent.

“They do so much for the kids around here,” Lanny Barnes said.

There are plenty of youngsters around the 10th Mountain Lodge on a given day, from the air rifle program to the high schoolers who participate in the MWSC’s biathlon and cross country teams.

Many of the top high school skiers in the state train here in the summer. They average two hard workouts and a total of 10 to 15 hours each week, said coach Will Sweetser, an Edward Little of Auburn graduate.

Russell Currier of Caribou, who competed at the World Junior championships in France last winter, was out on the roller loop this evening. So was Newt Rogers, who is home-schooled but competes for Fort Kent High’s team. He’s one of the top 10 junior biathletes in the nation, Sweetser said.

Madawaska’s Meagan Toussaint, who finished first in cross country classical and third in freestyle in the Class C high school championships, was also skating on the loop, as were other girls on the MWSC team.

Sweetser said there are a lot of opportunities for young women.

“If you have a reasonable amount of professionalism on the range, it doesn’t really even take talent,” he said. “It takes practice. Can you come through the range, get the rifle off your back, do everything correctly and safely, and do it right in less than a minute and a half? If you can, you have a pretty good chance.”