Chris Minyard

Shooting-range manager boasts Junior Olympic title

Chris Minyard is the manager of the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation Shooting Sports Complex in Jacksonville. Three years ago, he was named Junior Olympic champion in the state of Arkansas and was ranked 15th at the national competition.
Chris Minyard is the manager of the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation Shooting Sports Complex in Jacksonville. Three years ago, he was named Junior Olympic champion in the state of Arkansas and was ranked 15th at the national competition.

Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation Shooting Sports Complex Manager Chris Minyard said his favorite part about working at the new Jacksonville shooting range is helping young shooters learn the sport. Three years ago, Minyard was named Junior Olympic champion in the state of Arkansas and was ranked 15th at the national competition. With that experience — and the training that led up to it — Minyard knows what young shooting athletes need to learn in order to be successful.

“When I was coming up, I always had older gentlemen help me,” he said. “That’s where I learned most of my stuff, listening to people who had experience. Each shooter is unique. I had to take their advice and figure out how it fit me. Now, I can help a wide variety of people shoot what they want to.”

Minyard has shot in several varieties of competitions, giving him a range of experience so he can better help those who visit the shooting range. His involvement with shooting sports started at the 4-H Club in Benton, but Minyard said he was no stranger to the shotgun.

“My whole family hunts,” he said. “I’m talking about the whole family. Both the ladies and the gentlemen hunt in my family.”

The taste for shooting that Minyard gathered with his family and in 4-H Club propelled him to learn more and grow in the sport. He said he started shooting skeet and trap, but his main focus was sporting clays.

When he was 14 years old, his family moved to Lonsdale, and Minyard started going to Glen Rose schools, where he continued to shoot and expand his knowledge of the sport. As his interest and experience grew, his dreams grew as well.

“I found what they call international trap, and that’s when I started trying to shoot for the Olympic team,” he said.

Minyard’s dream to be on the Olympic team developed as he pushed himself harder and harder to perform well. Working toward that dream meant a lot of travel, and Minyard said his family worked with him to make sure he could follow his dream. There is a fall selection, a national competition and a spring selection that are held all over the country, and when athletes are not traveling, they are practicing.

“I was shooting all the time,” he said. “I shot probably more after I turned 16 than I did anytime between 9 and 16, just trying to make the team.”

Minyard was 17 years old the first time he went to the Junior Olympic competition. He made it high enough to go to the Olympic Training Camp and shoot at the national competition. He competed until he turned 21, at which point he was no longer eligible to compete in the Junior Olympics.

Even though his time in the Junior Olympics is over, Minyard said, he has not given up on his dream to shoot for the Olympic team. For now, though, he is taking a step back from shooting in order to get adjusted to his new role as manager at the shooting range and eventually go back to school to finish his engineering degree.

“It takes time, and it takes commitment, and it takes a lot of rounds to compete at a national level,” he said. “When you’re going to college and working and trying to compete, it’s just a little bit too much.”

After he graduated from high school, Minyard helped coach the Glen Rose High School trap team for a couple of years. Through connections with the Arkansas Youth Shooting Sports Program, he was introduced to the city of Jacksonville’s parks director, Kevin House, and started working as a supervisor at the shooting range. The range is a partnership between the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation and the city of Jacksonville, and the city staffs the facility. A couple of months ago, Minyard was promoted to manager of the shooting range.

In addition to shotgun tournaments, Minyard has also shot archery tournaments, .22 longrifle tournaments and pistol tournaments, giving him experience to help shooters of all ages and varieties.

While he was competing, he took some of his basic classes at College of the Ouachitas in Malvern, then transferred to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in pursuit of his degree. Minyard is taking a break from school this semester to get acclimated to his new role at the shooting range, but he is still keeping his dreams in sight. He plans to continue his education and finish his engineering degree through UALR. He said he wants to use that degree to become an engineer and gunsmith so he can design his own gun.

Once he finishes his degree, he expects more time will free up so he can start getting serious about shooting again. At that point, re-entering the competition world might not be far off.

“Once school is done and over with, I’m going to revisit my shooting career,” he said. “I definitely want to get back into it.”

Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.

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