Springfield, Mo.–The annual Banquet and Induction Ceremony for the Legends of Outdoors National Hall of Fame will be held tonight at the John A. & Genny Morris Conservation Center in Springfield, Missouri. Inductees for 2025 are: Tes Jolly, Russ Bailey of St. Marys, Ohio, David Cole of Big Sandy, M.R. James, Chuck Jones, George Lynch, Fred Ramsay, Bob Timberlake and Ron Wong.
From Garry Mason, organizer:
The Legends of the Outdoors announces that David Cole will be inducted into the Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame at this year’s Induction Ceremony. This event will be held at the John A. and Genny Morris Conservation Center in Springfield, Missouri, on Saturday, August 16th.
When you mention “shooting sports” to most people, the first names that come to mind are Annie Oakley or John Satterwhite, Ralph and Dorothy Koehler, or trick shooters such as Herb Parsons or Tom Knapp. Then, there were the great wing-shooters of yesteryear, such as Nash Buckingham or even Mr. Sam Walton, known to most as the founder of Walmart. But times have changed and with that change, new champions have risen through the ranks. One of those champions is Big Sandy, Tennessee’s David Cole.
Having grown up in rural Northwest Tennessee in the early 60’s, David, like many of the young men from that time period, learned to wing-shoot at an early age from his dad and his uncle. As the number of quail and places to hunt decreased around his rural community, a new passion for David was born.
Sporting clays shooting, according to David, was about to become a lifelong passion. The very first time that he shot clay targets on a registered sporting clays course, he was hooked. That first shot took place in 1992 and in 1994, David found himself shooting his first registered targets in a competition on that very same course.
To say that a star was born on that very day is a mild understatement to say the least. Since that first tournament, David has traveled to many sporting clays events across America and abroad. His travels have carried him to places such as Italy, France, Hungary, England, and Dubai.
David shot on the USA Sporting Clays team for the first time in 2014. He has been named to the USA FITASC Team eight times and has qualified for the USA Sporting Clays team three times during his career to date. David has also won the coveted “Beretta” world title twice in 2016 and 2017 and is one of the very few shooters to have won that championship back-to-back.
Times have certainly changed for David over the years, but the demands of travel and tournament schedules haven’t slowed down this small-town West Tennessee native yet. David continues to enjoy the travel and even though, having many titles and championship wins under his belt, there is still more that he wishes to accomplish before putting his custom-fitted Browning, “over and under”, back in the gun cabinet.