The Overton County 4-H BB team preparing for national competition following a month of intensive local and state contests.
4-H Agent Alyssa Anderson said the program has expanded significantly over the last three years. She said it has grown from a small group at a single school to a county-wide initiative involving dozens of students.
“We are headed to Nationals again this year for our BB and our air rifle team,” Anderson said. “So we’ll be trekking out there with about 10 to 12 different kids and then all of our coaching staff to support them in Rogers, Arkansas this summer at the Daisy Nationals.”
Anderson said the program currently serves 45 youth in the BB program and more than 50 students in archery. Anderson said the organization utilizes school resource officers to lead after-school practices twice a week at three different elementary schools.
“Overton County is a rural community, and there are a lot of kids that are interested in shooting sports here in this county,” Anderson said. “It’s one of the biggest programs that we have, especially in 4-H, totaling out at about 45 kids in our current BB program.”
Anderson said the program is open to both public school students and homeschooled children. Anderson said the curriculum includes a testing element that requires students to study and retain information about firearm safety and hunting fundamentals.
“They’re learning a lot of life skills, including responsibility, kind of some ethical decision making in terms of, you know, when they should do certain things, and kind of understanding the fundamentals of the safety behind firearms, and then beyond just the BB, but into the hunting realm of things, they have to learn those things as well for their testing,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the team recently hosted the Middle Tennessee BB contest, which drew 15 teams from four different counties to Overton County. Anderson said the students also traveled to Murfreesboro to compete in the 4-H State Jamboree.
“It’s just another opportunity, you know, there’s a lot of sports that are available to youth, but this is something that’s just a little bit different in the fact that there’s a lot of knowledge tests that go into it, but also it gives youth that may not be into basketball or football or some of those other sports something to do that may interest them instead,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the 4-H program provides all necessary equipment at practice locations so families do not have to purchase their own rifles. Anderson said the non-profit organization relies on sponsors and donations to fund the trips to national competitions in Arkansas and Nebraska.
“Each year we have gained in popularity, we, you know, we’ve had more youth participate,” Anderson said. “We started three years ago with about 10 to 12 kids at one school location, and like I said, this year we had 45 youth just in the BB program alone, and we practice at multiple locations.”
Anderson said interested families can enroll by contacting the UT-TSU Extension office in Overton County.