Churchill Precision Marksmanship Team to compete nationally
The Marksmanship program is just one of many extra-curricular activities JROTC cadets are exposed to as part of the Churchill High School JROTC program. The marksmanship program is the oldest extra-curricular program in JROTC, with roots that can be traced back to the first ROTC programs formed around 1917. From the beginning, the marksmanship program was oriented towards safety, skills development, and discipline, areas of the program emphasized to this day. However, in the 100 years since inception, the program has evolved and expanded to include different categories of shooters, scholarship opportunities for cadets, and expanded opportunities for national level competition.
One of the most prestigious national level competitions is the United States Army JROTC Service Championship, which is held in Anniston, Alabama, annually. The two-phase competition begins with a national postal competition that includes all Army JROTC programs. The Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) scores and ranks the postal competition results, in addition to inviting the top qualifying teams to compete in Anniston. This year, the precision marksmanship team from Churchill JROTC, led by Cadet Captain Johnathon Aguinaga, produced a qualifying score in the postal competition and earned an invitation to compete in the Army Service JROTC marksmanship competition.
The precision marksmanship team is the most highly skilled group of marksman in the program. Each of the four Cadets on the Essex Rifles Precision Marksmanship Team have spent years in training and preparation for the national level competition. One of the newest members of the precision team, freshman Ann White, a junior Olympic hopeful and all around outstanding student athlete, can also boast that she is the top marksman on the team, scoring a remarkable 288 out of 300 possible points during the national qualifying round. Cadet White joined the team with several years of experience training and competing in junior shooting clubs in Texas.
The senior member of the team, Cadet Major Dylan Pfeiffer, has devoted four years to the sport and is eagerly anticipating the opportunity to compete against the nation’s best junior marksman.
“I have learned so much as a member of this team,” said Cadet Pfeiffer. “The last couple of years we did not do as well as we had hoped. This year we discovered that it was because we were not working well together as a team. As a team, we have succeeded, and as a team we hope to do well at nationals.” With a little more than a month to finalize preparation, the team will be training before and after school the rest of this year and throughout the month of January.