The Indigo Interclub Skeet Shoot was the brainchild of Mr. S. K. “Scrubby” Wellman in l951. He was an inventor, sailor, skeet shooter, sportsman and accordion player! During 1951, Scrubby was a member of both the Mentor Harbor Yachting Club and the Hunting Valley Gun Club.
The idea was conceived by him at Mentor Harbor Yachting Club, when one day the center board of his boat “INDIGO” was stuck in the mud and the boat held fast in its daylong position.
The grand shooting tournament was to be held in the fall. Fifty targets were to be shot by each shooter, 25 at Mentor and 25 at Hunting Valley. All members of both clubs were invited to participate.
At that time, Hunting Valley Gun Club was a small club whose clubhouse had formerly been used as a voting booth. In order to accommodate all of the shooters, arrangements were made with Hunkin-Conkey Construction Company for the use of a construction trailer which was positioned at their site. Several HVGC members, who were engineers, supervised and installed the trailer.
During the final round, Merv France and Robert O. Brannan, two HVGC heavyweights (literally), moved to the end of the trailer for refreshments and suddenly the trailer tipped up on end! The shooting had to be stopped until the trailer and the shooters regained their composure. All this hilarity resulted in Mentor losing the first tournament, but post shooting refreshments remained a tradition for many years.
The winning team average of 49.2 still remains the highest in the years that the Indigo has been shot. Remember that this was obviously shot low gun, singles and doubles shot separately and with far less consistent ammunition! The second highest team average was in l960, although the l987, l988, l990, and l993 squads have come close.