Over the past few years it has become a tradition for Central Texas IPSC shooters to put on a spring charity match. Marc Jaschke put on a benefit match for the Brackenridge Children's Hospital in 1996, and in 1997 and 1998 Michael and Cheryl Leck have put on a match benefitting the Make A Wish Foundation. Make A Wish grants 'wishes' to children with life-threatening illnesses. Several years ago the Make a Wish foundation granted a wish for an Alaskan hunting trip. This earned them the scorn of the anti-hunting and animal-rights movement. Around this time the son of Noel Alfaro, a California gunsmith and IPSC shooter, died of cancer. These two events, along with a general desire to help a worthwhile charity, motivated the Central Texas IPSC community to do something for the Make A Wish foundation.
The match has grown from a mostly local, 40 shooter event, to a 2 day major match with 150 shooters from several states and the Caribbean islands. This year's Make A Wish match raised over $14,000. Major match sponsors were STI, Omni Tech, and Odie's Custom, with 38 other sponsors signing on to help. The match included a banquet, silent auction, raffle, and a live auction run by Central Texas Make a Wish chairman Wally Pryor.
Complete match results are available on the USPSA WWW page. Another notable thing about this year's match is that we were the first IPSC match in North America to use the new 'headless' target developed by IPSC. This new target was designed so that IPSC could qualify as an exhibition sport in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Stage 2 ('Swing Shift')
Stage 3 ('Running Man')
Stage 4 ('Lethal Weapon')
Stage 5 ('Mission Impossible')
Stage 7 ('Bridge Over the River Kwai')
Stage 8 ('Logan's Run')
The KR Training IPSC team did well at the Make a Wish match: Karl (left) was 2nd overall and Top Open Master, Roy Stedman (right) was Top C Limited, and Penny (center) was Top D Limited and 2nd Limited Female.
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