The best of the best in youth shooting sports will descend on Richmond County April 24 for the 32nd annual Youth Hunter Education Skills Tournament at Camp Millstone.

“This is the state championship for hunter education as sponsored by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission,” said Kevin Crabtree, a regional hunter educator specialist who lives in Bladen County. He covers a district that includes Scotland and Hoke. “If you’ve never been there before, it’s something to see.”

Last year the event drew some 3,000 competitors and spectators to Camp Millstone according to the wildlife commission. Given some rule changes, the field should be even larger this month. The new rules say there are six members per team. The old rules set a limit of five.

The Millstone event is capped at 54 teams from the nine districts in the state.

“I am not sure how many teams there are in the state,” Crabtree said. “I have a nine-county district and I have 18 teams. I know some districts have 35 teams.”

The tournament begins at 8 a.m. at the center near Ellerbe, with events in rifle, shotgun and archery, along with an orienteering challenge and a conservation test.

“The degree of the skills exhibited by these young people at the state championships is incredible,” said Travis Casper, the assistant hunter education programs coordinator for North Carolina. “The competition is keen, but so is the camaraderie between competitors.”

“I’ve been going there every year since 2002, and I think it’s gotten bigger and bigger each year,” Crabtree said. “I think some of that is because of changes in the system on how hunter education is handled. I think educators like myself have been able to enhance it.”

At one point, he said a handful of teams dominated the competition. But as new programs have sprouted up and improved, a fresh group of followers have started to follow the sports.

The Millstone event is as high as you get in Wildlife Resource Commission youth competition in North Carolina. The National Rifle Association sponsors a national event

Teams are organized within public and private schools, while home-schooled students and teams representing youth groups, such as 4-H or FFA, can compete, provided they meet eligibility requirements. Competition is conducted on senior (high school) and junior (middle school and elementary school) divisional levels, with overall team and overall individual awards based on aggregate scores in all events.

Crabtree will be taking two senior teams, from Western Harnett Senior High and Lumberton High School. His junior teams are from Western Harnett Middle School and Harrell’s Christian Academy in Sampson County. The top individual district winners in each category also qualify to go to Millstone even if there team does not.

“The schools that traditionally did well had their following, but when you’re able to branch out and getting schools that have only been in the program two or three years that qualify, that’s a whole other crowd,” Crabtree said.

Millstone has hosted the event for at least the last eight years, said Gene Shutt, the camp’s director.

“They used to have it in different areas of the state, mostly at gun clubs, but they were finding it was getting harder and harder to find somebody to host it,” Shutt said. “They came to us and they’ve helped us a little with construction and other things.”

Millstone will host a two-day 4-H shooting event in September, but it is smaller in scope, Shutt said.

Some of the volunteers spend the night at Millstone, but others find lodging at local motels, Shutt said.

Millstone’s shooting facility is about seven acres and includes two combination trap-skeet fields, an archery area, a small bore rifle and pistol range and a 100-yard shooting range.

“When it comes we part people on the ballfield and it’s full of cars, and we park them in some of the horse rings. There are a lot of people. It takes a big place to do it.”

Peter Williams can be reached at pwilliams@yourdailyjournal.com or by calling 910-997-3111 extension 18.