Pistol-Packin’ Panhandlers Gunslinging Club Commemorates Life In The Old West

Twice a month, Wyoming Belle is a cowboy-booted, denim-wearing gunslinger ready to shoot lead out of a rifle faster than you can say, “Boy, howdy.”

On the other days, she’s Loretta Atwood - a high school math teacher from Spokane.

Atwood and about 30 of her fellow 20th Century cowboys lined a shooting range at Farragut State Park Sunday for a meeting of the a 10-year-old organization that brings a little of the Old West to the Inland Northwest.

The 40-member club is an affiliate of the California-based Single Action Shooting Society, which claims 10,000 members in groups around the world.

Decked out in boots, vests, bandanas and those all-important cowboy hats, the group meets on the first and third Sunday of each month to shoot 19th century weapons and commemorate life in the Old West.

“It’s not like I can take any of my hobbies to school with me,” Atwood said. “It’s frowned upon.”

Dave Resser of St. Maries, who was raised on a ranch, started the Panhandle Regulators to combine his loves of history and shooting.

“It’s unbelievable to me how our little window of cowboy history has captured the whole world,” said Resser, a bootmaker with a handlebar mustache.

Recreating the low-tech West can be an expensive endeavor, though. Old-time shotguns are about $300, pistols are $400 and rifles go for as much as $1,000. And that’s not counting the costumes.

Spurs clank through the park as participants who by the names of The Long Rifle, Spanish Pecos, Yellowstone and their friends mosey up for the next round of shooting.

Colt Williams, a.k.a Bill Derr, explains the challenge to the group: You’re rangers who have just come to town, but the outlaws know you’re here. They’ve taken off with your money and now you have to shoot them.

The bad guys aren’t wearing black hats; they are round metal targets in the distance.

You’ve got to shoot nine with your rifle, take out four with your shotgun, and wipe out a whole mess of ‘em with your pistol.

And you’ve got to do it faster than any of the other cowpokes, partner.

“It’s like being a bunch of kids who used to play cowboys and Indians,” said Hope Findley of Chattaroy. “But now we get to use live ammo.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo