My name is Traci Rasmussen and I’m from Houston, Texas. You might wonder why I would drive 470 miles, one way, just to spend a single day in the one square mile town of Arcadia, Oklahoma. The population there is only about 175 people and it’s tucked along the path of good ol’ Route 66. However, neither of those fun facts are why. It’s because come September every year, there is a single day that the population gets a little boost. Actually, it’s a boost of an extra 400+ people! But why?
Well, it’s because that is where the OKC Gun Club is located. There are a lot of reasons why this Club is special but I’m just going to mention one. It is the host of an annual Women’s Fun Shoot, called Women on Target. I am the daughter of Richard and Marlene Deatherage of Edmond, Oklahoma. I grew up in a Michigan household where the Constitution was sacred. We never questioned nor worried about those rights because, there they were, documented for all the world to see. We were raised to appreciate and have great respect for our freedoms and rights in this country. For years my father volunteered at the OKC Gun Club’s Women’s Fun Shoot while my mother both volunteered and attended. Each year my mom would call me after the shoot to tell me all her stories of what she shot and how great the experience was. The following Mondays my dad would send an email around to all his friends and family with his own set of stories as a volunteer. I had finally had enough of hearing the great stories and reading about this event. I accepted my mom’s invitation to join her and participate in the shoot. The first year or two I partnered up with my mom and our two generations attended together.In 2019 my husband and I decided to also include our daughters. It would be quite an endeavor due to us needing to travel outside the hours of elementary, middle and high school. We would pack the night before and shove off when the last girl finished school, the day before the Women’s Shoot. We would roll in to Grandma’s house between midnight and 1am. And by 7am we had three generations and 6 ladies hopping back into the car on our way to OKC Gun Club’s Women on Target. Back then my daughters, Emily, Sofia and Julia were ages 17, 14 and 10 respectively. The whole experience was AMAZING. The gentlemen and lady instructors were so kind and helpful. Emily and Sofia had very little prior shooting
experience and Julia at age 10 had non at all. Yet each person they encountered treated them with the utmost respect and appreciation for taking the time to learn about and use the different firearms. The girls loved being side by side training with police officers, sheriffs and men from the bomb squad among others. In 2022 we extended our family outing at the Fun Shoot, by adding, my son’s fiancé (my future daughter-in-law,) Karalissa Hranitzky. She too, had a great experience with us. Jump ahead to 2024, once again that special day in September is approaching and we’ll have a full car load of as many of us that can attend. We’re all a bit older now so there is more to work around than just grade school hours. But we will continue our tradition as best we can, maneuvering around spouses and jobs, college and high school. I’ll gather my girls from three or four different homes around Houston. We’ll venture out to Grandpa and Grandma Deatherage in Edmond, Oklahoma. We’ll drive close to 1000 miles in a time span of 46 hours. Why? Because we can do that in our free country. Because it’s our right to bear arms but our responsibility to learn how to use them, keep them and store them in a safe manner. Because events like this are important for us as women. Because the things we’ll learn and practice in that single day is invaluable. We will do it and we will keep doing it because it’s worth it.
