Lisa Grimsley with the Wyoming Desperados Mounted Shooters and Mica Ratzlaff with Star Valley’s Street Market stepped into the SVI Radio studio to promote this weekend’s Shoot, Shop and Show event that takes place Friday and Saturday at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds. The event includes the mounted shooter’s competition, a street market and a car show hosted by the Star Valley Auto Club.

(0:00) It’s the weekday wake up this morning on SVI Radio Swift 98 and the Spur talking about the Willie (0:05) Lawrence Memorial shoot. It’s the shoot and shop happening August 22nd and 23rd at the Lincoln (0:11) County Fairgrounds and in studio today is Lisa Grimsley. She’s with the Wyoming Desperados (0:15) Mounted Shooters and also Micah Ratzliff with the Star Valley Street Market in studio today as well.
(0:21) Lisa, Micah, good morning. How are you guys doing today? Good morning. How are you? Good.
I (0:25) appreciate you joining us. Well, Lisa, let’s start with you. This has been an annual event as far as (0:30) the mounted shooting competition at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds for a number of years now.
(0:35) Just give us a little background on the Wyoming Desperados and maybe this event specifically (0:41) leading up to this year. Okay, we started in 2016 this shoot and it has grown in popularity (0:49) ever since. Our numbers this year have literally tripled.
We’re having a memorial shoot this year (0:55) it’s the Willie Lawrence Memorial shoot so that we have some commemorative belt buckles (1:01) and some other prizes that are indicative of this memorial shoot. So, we’re honoring a life (1:11) very well lived. Absolutely.
For those unaware of Willie and why you’re doing this memorial shoot, (1:17) tell us about Willie and what makes this so special. Well, he was the love of my life and (1:23) sadly last July we lost him unexpectedly and I wanted to do something that I think he would (1:31) have been very proud of and this was a way that we could honor a cowboy in cowboy mounted shooting. (1:40) That was Willie’s true identity as being a cowboy and he was all things Wyoming and he was a marine, (1:49) he worked for the forest service, he was a fire chief, he wore a lot of different hats (1:55) throughout his lifetime but being a cowboy was being his true identity.
This sounds like a great (2:02) event to honor him. It’s the Willie Lawrence Memorial shoot part of the shoot and shop (2:06) happening Friday and Saturday August 22nd and 23rd in conjunction with the annual mounted shooters (2:12) event. You’ve looped in the Starbody street market as well to be part of this that’s where Micah (2:16) comes in with the street market.
Micah, the street market is also an event that’s been growing (2:21) rapidly over the last couple of years. Tell us about the street market and what you guys are (2:25) hoping to do as part of the shoot and shop. Yeah, so really my vision for the street market (2:29) was just I noticed Afton didn’t have one a few years ago so I thought you know I want to sell, (2:34) I know other people want to sell, we have small businesses we want to promote and as Lisa has kind (2:39) of alluded to we’ve both had losses that have dramatically impacted our lives so it was really (2:44) important for me to pair with her this year and go in together and make it a really big really (2:49) awesome event for the whole community.
So really my part of it is just honoring small businesses, (2:54) bringing small businesses out so they can generate and make money and promote themselves and then in (2:59) doing so we also hope to donate back to mental health awareness. Okay, excellent. So something (3:06) where proceeds are going to that kind of cause for this particular street market then.
Tell us (3:11) about some of the vendors that you have not just traditionally but for this this event coming up. (3:16) Yeah, so we have traditional vendors that we see regularly at our every other weeks. We have about (3:23) 15 to 20 of those and those are people like Star Valley Roasters which is coffee beans.
We have (3:28) people that are coming back like Corn Dog Company so there will be a lot of food and then we have (3:33) Jack’s Stand down here with hot dogs and we have tacos and things like that and then we also have (3:38) people who hand make jewelry. We have people with handmade hats. We have people with canned (3:43) goods and we have sweet kettle popcorn and lots of desserts, cotton candy and then we also have hosted (3:50) and rented some bouncy houses this year so that will be dry and wet so kiddos bring your bathing (3:56) suits and we just wanted to do that for the community and give back and give families something (4:00) to do.
Excellent, very cool. In studio today there’s Micah Ratzliff with the Star Valley Street Market (4:05) also Lisa Grimsley with the Wyoming Desperados Mounted Shooting and the Shoot and Shop on (4:09) Friday and Saturday August 22nd and 23rd. Lisa let’s talk more about the the shooting (4:16) mounted shooting portion of this event.
What actually happens? What takes place during that? (4:22) Well the objective is to be fast and accurate so each rider is in the arena on horseback. They (4:29) have a 45 caliber single action revolver and they shoot at 10 balloon targets so they have two guns (4:36) loaded with five bullets. The bullets are or the ammunition is certified loads of black powder (4:44) so they go about 15 to 20 feet in prime conditions meaning no wind or precipitation (4:50) and we have about 100 different patterns.
We pick we’ll be running four of those for our main match (4:59) and then we have rifle and shotgun so on Friday we’ll shoot one main match stage that every rider (5:05) will do and then you can sign up to ride in rifle or in shotgun so we’ll do shotgun a rifle (5:13) on Friday and shotgun on Saturday and then this is very family friendly so our youngest rider is (5:20) probably about five years old and our oldest rider I’m going to guesstimate is probably in (5:26) their 70s so and we have a senior side pot so it’s very family friendly organization. We’re always (5:33) looking for new members. We do practices on Tuesdays to try to encourage people to come out (5:39) or also from one to three on Friday we’re doing time only’s so if you want to come and try and (5:46) see if your horse would take to mounted shooting you’re welcome to do so.
Our shoot portion of it (5:52) starts at 7 p.m on Friday and again Saturday at 9 a.m. Excellent and again so you can come watch (5:59) all that is there an admission fee to to participate or to watch the the Desperados? Nope I promise (6:06) that as long as we were going to be here and doing this we wanted to keep it free and open to the (6:11) public. Each one of our riders are incredibly passionate about our sport and we love to (6:16) showcase it and show it off and of course our horses. So yeah we want you to come out and (6:24) watch but we also if you’re interested you can donate to the food pantry.
Our riders we (6:31) collect food for the food pantry and we’ve done that historically since we’ve started (6:35) and we will have a booth available in the vendor section which is behind the fairground or behind (6:43) the grandstands. That’s where all the the vendors will be in the food trucks will be (6:52) and so we’ll have a booth back there as well and people can donate to the food pantry then. (6:59) Great cause great cause and again it’s all happening with the Willie Lawrence Memorial (7:06) shoot the shoot and shop August 22nd through the 23rd and it just so happens there’s the car show (7:10) that day at least on the on the Saturday right at the Lincoln County Fair with the Star Valley (7:14) Auto Club.
So hot summer nights we’ll be putting on the car show as well so it all is at the Lincoln (7:19) County Fairgrounds. Don’t miss any of it Lisa, Micah thank you for your time. Anything we missed (7:24) from either of you that you’d like to mention today about this event? I’d just like to see (7:29) it come out it’s rain or shine so let’s see it Star Valley.
Perfect shoot and shop and it all (7:36) takes place again Friday, Saturday, August 22nd and 23rd at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds. Lisa (7:43) Grimsley with Wyoming Desperados Mounted Shooters and Micah Ratzliff with the Star Valley Street (7:47) Market on the weekday wake up SVI radio.