SPORTS
Blue Mountain Eagle
A10
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
SHOOTING THE BREEZE
The .45-70 Government
W
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Golfers pose at a tournament fundraiser for Thadd’s Place, a grief center planned in John Day, Saturday.
Thadd’s Place tees off
Fundraiser supports
grief center to be
opened in John Day
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Nearly 75 people com-
peted in the Thadd’s Place
golf tournament at the John
Day Golf Course Saturday
and then hit the drive-through
dinner by donation in the
Chester’s Thriftway parking
lot to celebrate the eventual
opening of the grief center.
Named in honor of Thad-
deus Cowan Thompson who
died of cancer last year at
the age of 39, organizers
and those closest to Cowan
Thompson said it was an
emotional day.
“I’ve been able to laugh
with people today,” Tirza
Shaffer, Cowan Thompson’s
sister, said. “We’ve been cry-
ing. It’s been wonderful.”
Shaffer said the goal was
to bring awareness to Thadd’s
Place, a nonprofit grief center,
which will rely on community
and volunteer support.
“We want to get walls up
in this building,” Shaffer said.
“We want to be able to make
it operational so people have
somewhere to go so they don’t
have to grieve alone.”
Shaffer said the focus of
the day was to get the program
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Alana Shaffer, left, and Jordan Ross atop a banner with the Thadd’s Place design at the ninth
hole of the John Day Golf Course during a fundraiser tournament. The Thadd’s Place design was
chosen by Thaddeus Cowan Thompson’s son Nathaniel.
“off the ground and running.”
She said the grief center is
continuing the legacy of her
brother.
Thadd’s Place board mem-
ber Jan Curtis said she was
not sure how much money the
event brought in exactly, but
she said there were 18 teams
at $500 each, which brought
in $9,000.
She said the 50/50 raffle
ticket sales brought in $600.
She said there were over
nine sponsors at $100 each,
and other businesses — local
and from out of town —
donated as well.
Curtis is a teacher and she
said she has helped her stu-
dents through the grief pro-
cess and she also lost her
husband two years ago. Addi-
tionally, she said she golfed
in tournaments with her hus-
band frequently and that it
was something that was very
important to her.
Curtis said the top three
teams were Andy, Bo and
Ken Ellison and Andy Radi-
novich, who shot a 58; Brad
Armstrong, Mitch Saul,
Colt Carpenter and Alex
Finlayson, who shot a 60;
and Matt Curtis, Kellen
McMullen, Shane Schiemer
and Rick Ramirez, who shot
a 63.
Join our
School Today
alt Gentis or Mike
Browning or Jim
Sproul ought to be
writing this article. The expe-
rience those gentlemen have in
hunting and long-range shoot-
ing with rifles chambered for
this 147-year old cartridge far
exceeds that
of my own.
There are
many other
names we
could add to
that list and
from right
Dale Valade
here in Grant
County. Nev-
ertheless, I will attempt to pen
more than a cheechako’s effort
for your reading pleasure!
Realizing the future lay
in self-contained cartridges,
the U.S. Army Ordinance
Department began looking
for replacements for the var-
ious muzzleloaders that were
issued to the troops in the
War between the States. Con-
verting the Springfield front
stuffers via a curious design
known as the trapdoor saved
Uncle Sam (read “taxpayers”)
a lot of money versus adopt-
ing one of the Henry or Spen-
cer repeating designs. Gov-
ernment brass apparently kept
our boys in blue to single-shot
rifles to spare them from
wasting too much ammo. I’m
sure that infantry and cavalry
alike at Little Big Horn et.
al. appreciated that decision.
The first trapdoor rifles were
chambered in .50-70, but
in 1873 the .45-70 made its
debut. Christian Sharps and
Philo Remington wasted no
time chambering their Fall-
ing Block and Rolling Block
single shot rifles for the new
government round. Frontiers-
men, especially buffalo hunt-
ers, enjoyed the accuracy and
long-range power offered by
these rifles.
In 1881, Marlin became
the first firearms com-
pany to offer the .45-70 in a
lever-action repeating rifle.
The Browning-designed
1886 Winchester came five
years later. A 405-grain bul-
let became the standard,
although lighter 300-grain
Contributed photo
The .45-70 Government.
bullets see use as well as
heavier 500-plus-grain bullets.
Although it’s not always been
a top-10 seller, the .45-70 in
a lever gun or single shot has
gained and maintained a fan
base ever since. It is espe-
cially popular up north where
they grow much bigger spe-
cies of deer and bear. Today
the .45-70 is debatably more
popular than ever and sees
use on all manner of game
worldwide.
My own experience with
this grand old cartridge has
been limited to ringing steel
and punching paper. While I
have yet to successfully take a
big game animal with it, I’ve
fired both original and replica
Sharps 1874 single shots, Mar-
lin 1895 and Winchester 1886
lever guns and the unique vin-
tage 1878 Remington-Keene
bolt-action repeater. I did,
however, shoot the head
off of an angry rattlesnake
with a borrowed 1886 Win-
chester. It was the only gun
we had handy, so bumblebee
met bazooka. The aforemen-
tioned Mister Gentis however
has taken 13 elk with 13 shots
using his .45-70! That’s a
pretty impressive track record
in itself.
While there are many fast-
er-moving choices out there,
you could do a lot worse than
the quintessential, nearly ses-
quicentennial big bore .45-70!
Like they say, the older the
violin, the sweeter the music.
Are you a .45-70 fan?
Write to us at shootingthe-
breezebme@gmail.com!
Dale Valade is a local
country gent with a love for
the outdoors, handloading,
hunting and shooting.
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