Columnist Susan Snyder: Bobbie Jo is caught in a trap

Friday, June 7, 2002 | 10:07 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

To fully appreciate the possible impact of Bobbie Jo Childers' trapshooting prowess, you need to see where she works.

Childers manages the copy center for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It's a kind of controlled mayhem where student workers use computers, printers and more paper than a spotted owl can shake a wing at to print everything UNLV publishes.

Childers has to make sure that formats, UNLV logos and other guidelines are strictly followed.

"This is not Burger King. You don't get it your way. You take it my way or you don't get the damned thing," a sign posted in her cubicle says.

Many highly educated people can't design a brochure to save their sheepskins.

"You would not believe what some people try to do," Childers said.

What I don't believe is that anyone would try to slip anything past Childers because she can blast to smithereens a disk the size of a salad plate as it shoots out of a cannon 25 yards away. That's 75 feet -- about the length of two school buses.

She hits more than she misses. So on June 14, Childers will turn 60 years old and be inducted into the Nevada Trap Shooting Hall of Fame in Carson City. It's an honor based on her sportsmanship in addition to her scores.

If you saw her in the produce department, Childers would look like any other post-55-year-old woman behind a grocery cart. But take her out on a shooting range, and she turns into a focused, competitive shooting machine.

She doesn't care for events with stationary targets. They're too boring. Ditto for practice. Childers says she doesn't.

"I can't hit anything that's not moving," she said. "And I can't practice because there's nothing in it for me. Now, if somebody comes out, and says, 'I'll shoot for a beer,' that's fine. But I won't stand out there and practice. You have to make it worth my while."

Go ahead. Make her day. An entire room in Childers' home is devoted to trophies, buckles and baubles she has won in 22 years of trapshooting. Competitors must join the American Trap Shooting Association, an Ohio-based group that keeps track of scores nationally.

"It's like professional golf," she said.

But without the silly pants.

Childers started shooting back in 1980 while traipsing around to events with a friend who was into the sport. She got "tired of standing around," so she learned to shoot. She hit 75 out of 100 targets on her very first competition.

She competes every weekend she can, and is in Utah right now for a contest before an Elko tournament that precedes the induction ceremony next week. Each round consists of 100 targets. She usually misses only a couple, and she's shot a perfect score once.

"It was so hot, I had a nosebleed. But that day I shot 100 they could've set off a stack of dynamite behind me, and I don't think I would've heard it," she said. "It's the most addictive sport I have ever seen."

Childers says her husband shoots too, but they don't compete on the same level. She even lets him win, now and then.

"He beats me once in a while -- if he's having a really good day," she said, "and I'm having a really bad one."