Cowboy action shooting at Iowa games has competition, Old West feel

By Rob Gray, Correspondent

INDIANOLA - It's high noon at the Iowa Games' cowboy action shooting event and Mark Eakes of Iowa City is immersed in character.

Black hat.

Black eye patch.

Six guns a-blazin'.

He's “B.J. Booker” now - and bears a striking resemblance to his hero, John Wayne.

“It's fun playing the big cowboy,” said Eakes, 62, who competed along with several other Old West aficionados in Saturday's scorching heat at the Coyote Gulch Range off U.S. Highway 65. “I always wanted to be a cowboy when I was a kid. Now I am.”

Cowboy action shooting may seem to be a novelty, but to devotees it's a healthy obsession.

Eakes' de facto partner, Jerry Husband, aka “Trigger Happy Husband”, of Millersburg said the sport can be costly initially.

“But I've been comparing it to golf and once you're in, it's way cheaper,” said Husband, 53.

And it's growing.

Husband said when he became a member of the Single Action Shooting Society (S.A.S.S.) in 2007, his number was 74,000.

Eakes joined the group shortly thereafter.

Membership now is approaching 100,000 worldwide, said Tracy Thorp of Des Moines, one of the commissioners of the Iowa Games event.

“It's so widespread, you can shoot this in any one of the 50 states, in multiple towns, Europe, Australia, anywhere like that,” said Thorp, 58.

Speed is the preeminent skill involved, but a quick draw also needs to find its target.

Competitors dress in period-correct clothing and fire replica or original guns commonly used from about 1863 to 1900.

“This thing caught on in California and just spread like wildfire and just hit a niche: Guys, middle-aged, who like to shoot,” said Harold Morris, who competed Saturday and also served as a commissioner. “This is something they can come out and do and if their eyesight is a little shaky, they can still do it.”

Eakes, who is semiretired after 31 years working at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep shooting several months ago.

He lost his right eye to cancer last September and briefly wondered if his cowboy days were over.

“Went kind of around and around with it,” Eakes said. “Eventually I kind of got ticked off and said, ‘This is not going to stop me.'”

Husband helped spur Eakes back into the saddle, so to speak.

“In 1973 I had my eye hit by a baseball - cut the cornea,” said Husband, who works in patient transport at the University Hospitals and Clinics. “I was laid up for a year or two, whatever it was. And the thing I hated most was when someone treated me like I was handicapped. Granted, Mark was a hell of a lot older at that point, but I didn't cut him any slack right off the bat. And I think that helped.”

So did Eakes' Duke-like orneriness.

“Even left handed, I'm going to beat him,” he said with a grin.