Where everybody is at home on the range

EMERADO, N.D. _ Robert and Sherry Thompson were looking for Friday night date options when they stumbled on a winner.

First they shoot in a winter indoor pistol league, which takes about an hour or so, and then they go out to dinner. It's the best of both worlds for the Grand Forks shooting sports enthusiasts.

"I like dinner," Sherry Thompson said with a laugh.

Talking his wife into joining him on the pistol range wasn't a tough sell, Robert Thompson says.

"Not really," he said. "I said, 'We'll come out here and do this, and we'll do dinner every Friday night.' I went and bought her a gun, and away we went."

This is Sherry's fourth year in the smallbore pistol league, and her husband's sixth.

"He's several points ahead of me," Sherry said of her husband's pistol prowess.

"Ha, several?" Robert chimed in. We'll leave it at that.

"I've gotten a plaque almost every season, though," Sherry says. Plaques are awarded at the end of the season to shooters who finish first overall or at the top of one of three divisions _ A, B or C _ based on their league scores.

A popular Friday offering at the Forks Rifle Club's indoor shooting range, the Winter Indoor Pistol League begins in January and continues through March. According to Tom Reiten of Grand Forks, the club's secretary-treasurer, the league season consists of 10 matches, and shooters take their high five scores for the season to determine the standings.

"That's recognizing not everybody is going to be able to make every week, and some nights the wheels just fall off," he said.

A couple of rough outings, in other words, won't have a big impact on the final scores.

This year's league features 34 participants who can shoot in one of two Friday afternoon relays or three Friday evening relays.