THE NEW RIFLE CHAMPION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2713, 27 March 1924, Page 3

THE NEW RIFLE CHAMPION.

AN ENTHUSIASTIC SERVICE sno r r. H. Simmonds, the new King’s Prizeman, is a medium-sized, stur-dily-built man, in the middle thirties. A native of Picton, Marlborough, where he learned to handle, the rifle, lie is employed in the traffic branch of the railway service at Wanganui. He has been shoot nig for the past two years with the Wanganui Rifle Club. He competed at Trentham last year and was occasionally in the prize list, but did nothing outstanding. At the recent Wanganui meeting at Christmas time Simmonds shot well and won the North Island championship, and a week later at Trentham, was runner-up for the district championship. He served the full period of the war in the Wellington Regiment, attaining the rank to captain, and was Adjutant of the Second Battalion. He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry on the field in France.

As the result, no doubt, of his war experience, Simmonds is an enthusiastic advocate of service shooting and his feat in winning both service and fixed target championships at the meeting just ended is unique in the history of rifle shooting. Rarely does one man excel] at both. Masefield had managed to gain both distinctions but not in the same year. Incidentally as the result of obtaining the highest total for all matches fired at the meeting, Simmonds takes the Grand Aggregate gold medal, presented by the president of the Association. Simmlonds took his club mates in hand also for service shooting, and it is mainly due to his training that they have this year captured the Logan Campbell Shield for the second time in succession, so that it becomes the club’s own property. At the 1014 meeting, when shooting for Marlborough, Simmonds was runner-up to Masefield for the King’s Prize.