Archery Club News | September 2025
August 28, 2025Oakland County Sportsman – October 2025 – Members Only
September 23, 2025
By, Robert Bauer, Secretary , D.R. Wilson Rifle & Pistol
With the beginning of the July 30th O.C.S.C. General Membership meeting, we held the overdue Honors
Ceremony for long time member Ed Kretsch, who passed away last December.
Ed was an Air Force veteran and a fixture at the Oakland County Sportsman’s club for many years, leading, supporting, training several of our rifle and pistol activities including:
Bullseye/Precision Pistol Helping build our award winning team.
Junior Rifle One of the largest Jr. Rifle programs in the Country.
Pistol training classes
High-Power Rifle Training members for the CMP competitions.
Began the .22 Caliber Bowling-Pin Shoots. “Fun shoots” for the whole family.
Ran the “Hunter’s Sight-In” Fall events. Rifle sight-in opportunity and help for the public.
Built our earlier Honor Guard team Providing honors services for our Veteran members.
President of D.R. Wilson Rifle & Pistol Leading the sub-club for many years.
Board of Directors Served for many years representing Jr. Rifle.
Fundraising for Junior Rifle was a particular focus back when we held the Swap Meets, and dedicating Tips when running the Hilltop Concession stand, as well as many more activities supporting the club.
This is only a small part of the recognition he’s earned and deserves from us, the members of the Oakland County Sportsmen’s Club.
As many of the members of our prior Honor Guard team were no longer available, we had to put together a new group of volunteers. Tom Burnside had previously been in charge of the Club’s Garand rifles used for the salute, prepared the rifles and clips of blank ammunition to keep the operation as simple as possible for the riflemen, and provided additional suggestions and direction. Dave Rath, who has taken over the High-Power Rifle training in Ed’s absence, drilled the seven riflemen in the 21-gun salute procedure briefly before the ceremony. With the limited practice time, the line was set prior to the club members coming out for the ceremony. Rain had been threatening, but was only a very light sprinkle as we began.
The commands were given, the line to attention, rifles raised, fired three times, and back to attention.
Our Trumpeter, club member Nick Ewing, played “Taps.” Finishing the ceremony, our Piper Richard Parker, who had originally been sponsored for membership to the club by Ed, now played “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes.
We all moved back inside to finish the business of the meeting, and then the sky opened up, the heavy rain having held off just long enough. I was reminded of something I told Ed when his wife Sandy passed in 2022:
