Minnesota DNR Conservation Officers Win 10th Straight Shooting Competition
Conservation officers (CO) with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) did it again, winning their tenth consecutive Basil Irwin Memorial Pistol Match.
The DNR team of conservation officers included Greg Abraham, New Ulm; Mitch Boyum, Rushford; Sam Hunter, Park Rapids; Brent Ihnen, Waseca; Aaron Kahre, Minnetonka; Kevin Neitzke, Fort Snelling; Thor Nelson, Bloomington; and Greg Oldakowski, Wadena.
The team scored 5,285 of 6,000 points to defeat DNR teams from Iowa and Wisconsin, keeping the coveted “Warden’s Jug” in Minnesota.
Retired Minnesota DNR CO Larry Webinger won the retired Warden’s Jug with a score of 1,091 points, including 22 Xs on a bull’s-eye target.
CO Abraham won the Basil Irwin Cup with an individual score of 1,131 out of a possible 1,200 points, including 32 Xs on a bull’s-eye target.
Basil Irwin was a Minnesota “game warden” in the Sandstone area for decades. In 1967 he challenged some Wisconsin wardens to a team pistol match. The inaugural event was called the “Minnesota-Wisconsin Wardens Pistol Match,” but renamed “The Basil Irwin Memorial Game Warden Pistol Shoot” after Irwin’s death in 1970. Since then, natural resources enforcement officers from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have participated in the event.
The 46th annual Basil Irwin Memorial Conference and Pistol Match was held Aug. 27-28 in Fennimore, Wis.
