This field is Makayla Scott’s dream, she built it and they come!

The indomitable force of nature known as Makayla Scott continues to sweep across the country plowing all obstacles out of the way. I have told you about Makayla in these pages before but if you don’t remember she is a 17-year-old shotgun shooting piece of machinery from Alvon, West Virginia (near White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County). Makayla had a less than advantageous start in life and was being bumped around the foster care system when she was found by Telford Scott and adopted into the Scott family.

The indomitable force of nature known as Makayla Scott continues to sweep across the country plowing all obstacles out of the way.

Being serious about competing in the shotgun world meant a lot of hard work and sacrifices, for Makayla and her family.

Makayla may have had a rough start in life but some years ago through the love and encouragement of her new family, and the 4-H shooting program, she picked up a shotgun, started shooting competitively and has never looked back.

Being serious about competing in the shotgun world meant a lot of hard work and sacrifices, for Makayla and her family. Lots of travel to shooting events in other states means long road trips, motels, and bad diner food. Once at the event, to effectively compete the shooter must shrug all this off and make it count when standing up there burning powder, this means when the shotgun goes bang targets have to break. Makayla did it, her family did it, and the list of accomplishments is impressive.

Makayla Scott (at 17) has established herself as a force to be reckoned with on the competitive shotgun trail…

In 2018 Makayla won the Perazzi Grand Prix Bronze in Junior Class, she shot on the 4th Place Team in the 4-H Nationals in Grand Island, Nebraska in 2019, she was 4th place in Sporting Clays in the SCTP (Scholastic Clay Target Program) Nationals in 2019, in 2019 she was the Doubles Skeet Champion at SCTP Nationals,  made the NC All-State team in 2019, and she qualified for the United States Junior Olympic Trap Team and was the first lady shooter from West Virginia to earn that position, ever. Please note that this list of wins an accomplishment could go on but in truth I am too lazy to keep typing them. One that I did miss is that in October of 2019 Makayla earned a spot to shoot on the team of Dave Miller of CZ-USA where she was one of four young shooter that helped him set a Guinness Book of World Records for the most number of clays broken by a 5 person team in twelve hours! Five shooters shot almost continuously for 12 hours, 14,167 targets where broken and I do not expect that number to be topped any time soon.

Makayla Scott (at 17) has established herself as a force to be reckoned with on the competitive shotgun trail, but that was not enough, she had another idea brewing in that brain of hers.

Wonder if there was a local shotgun range where young people could try the shotgun sports of trap, skeet, and maybe 5 stand? Wonder if this range was right here in her backyard? She had the room, all she had to do was put together a few little details like some bulldozer work, pouring concrete and building trap houses for the skeet range, laying out and putting in the various shooting stations, and acquiring the target throwers needed, little things like that.

Makayla wasted no time in reaching out to some of her sponsors like firearms company CZ-USA, and well-known clay target thrower makers MEC Outdoors. They soon joined in to make this happen and Makayla also reached out to some local businesses and got help from Lynch Construction, Green Acers Excavation, and Neathhawk Lumber. Local shotgun coaches Joe Hayes, Curtis Kincaid, Joe Windon, and Makayla’s Dad, Telford all put in long hours helping to make this shooting range a reality. 

With all that she had been through personally and what this shooting range could mean to new shooters being exposed the shotgun sports, Makayla knew she could only give the site one name, Field of Dreams.

if you are a young person that would like to try shotgun shooting, you can reach Makayla through the Mountaineer Clay Crusher page on Facebook. 

Now that the physical site was becoming a reality Makayla put phase two of her dream for this place into action. Makayla had competed with the North Carolina SCTP team last year and done well. Even though she was proud of this accomplishment, she knew she had to find a way to take a team from her home state of West Virginia to the SCTP Nationals. So the first chapter of the Scholastic Clay Target Program in West Virginia was born, The Mountaineer Clay Crushers!

Currently the Mountaineer Clay Crushers have about 25 members, if you are a young person that would like to try shotgun shooting, you can reach Makayla through the Mountaineer Clay Crusher page on Facebook. 

Makayla knew if she built it they would come. Pull!