THE FAMILIES RAÑA, SCHREIBER, AND KRILLING

THE ISSF TRIANGLE

Olegario Vázquez Raña and María de los Angeles Aldir with Bill Krilling and Franz Schreiber, son of Horst and Heidi Schreiber

The “modern ISSF era” began in February 1980 with the election of a new President and Secretary General during the ISSF General Assembly of the XXII Olympiad that was held in Mexico City.   Olegario Vázquez Raña (Mexico) was elected as the sixth ISSF President and Horst G. Schreiber (Germany) was elected as the ninth ISSF Secretary General.  This blog is about how the new ISSF leadership team was formed.

Gary’s connection with this story goes back to the 1963 Pan American Games when both Olegario Vázquez Raña, his brother Mario Vázquez Raña, Bill Krilling and Gary all competed as athletes in the rifle events.  Gary and Olegario developed a close friendship as they continued to compete for their respective national teams in the 1964 Olympics, 1966 World Championship, 1967 Pan American Games and 1968 Olympics.  The 1968 Games were in Mexico City where Olegario and his wife Gela invited Ruth Ann and two other U. S. team wives to stay at their home.  The two families also trained and traveled together in Europe in 1969 during Gary’s last year of international competition.   

Bill Krilling, left and Gary Anderson on the victory stand for 3x40 50m, 1963 Pan Am Games

ISSF politics brought Olegario and Gary back together at the 1978 General Assembly in Seoul, Korea where both were new candidates for election to the ISSF Administrative Council.  That story actually began in 1976, however, when Olegario’s brother Mario was a candidate for ISSF President at the General Assembly in Montreal.  The NRA was then the USA national federation member of the ISSF.  In the 1976 election, Mario Vázquez Raña lost by one vote to Georges Vichos of Greece and the NRA delegates voted against Mario.  Mario subsequently decided not to pursue the ISSF Presidency again, but his younger brother Olegario decided to be a candidate for ISSF President at the 1980 General Assembly.  Gary had become the NRA Executive Director, General Operations, in 1977 as the result of a major power shift in the NRA (i. e. “1977 Cincinnati Revolution” and the ascension of Harlon Carter).  That put Gary in a position to be one of the NRA delegates to the 1978 ISSF General Assembly and a candidate for the ISSF Administrative Council.  Gary and Olegario both finished at the top of the voting list to become new Council members.  This gave Olegario a platform from which to launch his campaign for ISSF President and with his new position, Gary was able to switch the NRA/USA vote to support Olegario’s candidacy.

Olegario and Gary 

Olegario had been an active, successful shooter who competed for Mexico in four Olympic Games (1964, 1968, 1972, 1976) and five World Championships (1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1979).   His outstanding marksmanship accomplishments included two air rifle world records, set in 1973 and 1975.  Olegario had become a very successful Mexico City entrepreneur who managed a diverse portfolio of businesses so he was well qualified to lead the ISSF.  Since the ISSF roots were in Europe, Olegario wisely decided that he needed a European and preferably a German to be his Secretary General and partner.  That search led him to Horst Schreiber and the second side of the ISSF triangle.  

Olegario Vàsquez Raña, active competitor on the Mexican Shooting Team

The story of how Horst and Olegario met now goes back to 1955 when Horst met the third side of the ISSF triangle, Master Sergeant William E. “Bill” Krilling,  (1927-2014).  Bill was a war hero who received the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry in combat during the Korean War.   He was a great shooter, coach, and true friend of everyone who knew him.  He won seven medals in international competitions including a Pan-American Games silver medal in 1963 and a World Championship bronze medal in 1966. 

Distinguished Service Cross presented to Bill Krilling for gallantry during combat during the Vietnam War

From September 1955 until February 1959, Bill Krilling was assigned to the 373rd Armored Inf. Bn. and the 370th Inf. Bn. near Munich, Germany.   Bill and Maureen Krilling first met Heidi Sweekhorst and Horst Schreiber in 1955 at a friendship shoot in Munich between the American Rod and Gun Club and the German Club Hubertus for Hunting and Sport Shooting.

It is very common in Germany, even expected, that when eating at a table in a restaurant where there are empty places, you invite people you don’t know to sit down with you in those empty seats.    It just happened that Bill and Maureen and Horst and Heidi sat at the same table and started talking to one another (Horst and Heidi spoke excellent English).   A friendship was born and the ISSF triangle was starting to form.

During those times (late 1950’s) Maureen Krilling could get valued American products at the Commissary and would bring items like coffee, tin foil and saran wrap that were not available on the German market to Heidi and Horst.  Heidi and Horst welcomed the Krillings into their German family life.   In June 1957, when Horst and Heidi were married, Bill Krilling’s daughter Kathy was a flower girl at the wedding.

In 1959, Bill returned to the U. S. and was assigned to the Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning.  Bill and Olegario subsequently met and became good friends when Olegario traveled to Lackland Air Force Base to compete in competitions there as a guest competitor.  They were both competitors in the 1963 Pan Am Games in San Paulo, Brazil and the 1966 World Championship in Wiesbaden, Germany. 

In 1971, when Bill Krilling retired from the Army and was between Army and civil service jobs, he was invited to come to Mexico and coach Olegario and teammate Jesús Elizondo for six months.  The Mexican team and Coach Krilling traveled to Munich in 1971 on a training trip and it was there that Bill Krilling introduced Horst Schreiber to Olegario.   Horst and Heidi invited the Krillings and Olegario and his wife Gela to dinner the next evening.  Since that time, these families became very close and the ISSF triangle was complete.

Olegario Vázquez Raña, Bill Krilling, and Jesús Elizando

Horst Schreiber (1928-2010) was educated as a lawyer at the University of Munich and Harvard University in the USA.  He was a prominent attorney in Munich, but he was also an enthusiastic hunter and sports club leader who had successfully served in leadership roles in the sports of shooting, golf and tennis (from An ISSF Chronicle)1 .  By then, Olegario was looking for a corporate lawyer to oversee his expanding businesses in Europe and hired Horst.  

María de los Angeles Aldir with Horst and Heidi Schreiber

By the late 1970s when Olegario decided to become a candidate for ISSF President, he not only wanted a new German leader who could be a candidate for Secretary General, but he also knew he needed someone with legal and administrative skills and a passion for the shooting sports. The German Shooting Federation agreed with his proposal to nominate Horst for the office of Secretary General.  On February 14, 1980, Olegario was elected President of the ISSF and Horst Schreiber was elected Secretary General.    Horst’s law office at 21 Bavariaring, Munich, became the new ISSF Headquarters.     The building was also the childhood home of Heidi Sweekhorst Schreiber.

Note:   Franz Schreiber, son of Horst and Heidi, was elected as the 10th ISSF Secretary General in 2011 and continues to most capably perform the duties of that office today.

For contributions to this blog story, I am grateful to:

Olegario Vázquez Raña, President ISSF

Heidi Schreiber

Kathy Krilling Nickerson

  1 An ISSF Chronicle – The First 100 years of an International Sports Federation 

1966 World Shooting Championships in Wiesbaden, Germany

"The Team to Beat was the Russians"

USSR-USA Showdown
USA Shooters were "Cold-war Warriors"

"Scheiben-Toni"
Recreated from a post card by an artist in Lexington, NE

The official motif of the 1966 World Championship in Wiesbaden, Germany featured a young boy in peasant clothing signaling a hit on a large wooden target.    He has a target-marking disc in his hand and is calling the result, a near perfect center shot, to the shooters and spectators.  Target marking was mainly done by boys, some children of the marksmen.  The boys had to be quick as no trenches (or pits) were used.  After each shot the boys ran from a safe distance to the targets to score them. The boys took great delight in marking a particularly good score on the target and were allowed to display theatrics in their shot signals. This boy, swinging marking disc and cap, is crying loudly for joy because of the great shot.  

The World Championship motif was based on a famous German shooting motif called the “Scheiben-Toni” or target boy. The original Scheiben-Toni was painted by the German artist Hermann von Kaulbach for the 15th German Federal Shooting Festival in Munich in 1906.  Von Kaulbach was born in 1846.  Before the turn of the century he won a name for himself as the creator of historical-symbolic paintings. 

Herman Von Kalbach b.1846

Von Kalbach's "Scheiben-Toni"

  

A Quilt of Leaves

"A Quilt of Leaves"

Atlanta Olympic Games 1996

During the Atlanta 1966 Olympic Games, Gary worked as the Competition Manager for the Shooting Sports at the Wolf Creek Shooting Venue, and he and Ruth Ann lived in Sharpsburg, GA for five years – two years before the Games, and three years after the Games.

One of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games cultural projects was established by the Atlanta Olympic Organizing Committee and called the Georgia Quilt Project.  This project celebrated American quilting traditions through “A Gift of Quilts” project.  This project called for two handmade quilts of various designs to be presented to each participating nation – one to the nation’s opening ceremony flag bearer and one to the National Olympic Committee. The project created 400 different quilts that are now distributed throughout the world.   During the Games, 397 quilts were on display at the Nicholson Gallery of Atlanta History Center.

The Georgia Quilt Project produced a book with colored pictures of 400 of the quilts. 

The cover of the book about the Quilt Project, and one interior page showing eight quilts.

   

Knowing that her mother would be interested in the project and looking at all the pictures, Ruth Ann sent the book to her.     Included in the book was the pattern for the “Quilt of Leaves."

This design was selected to exemplify the “Look of the Atlanta Games.”  The design features laurel leaves to symbolize victory and olive branches to symbolize peace.   The design adorned tickets, program books, trading pins, etc.

Ruth Ann’s mother, Helen Bell, hand made the “Quilt of Leaves” as a surprise gift.   It was presented for display in the 1996 Olympic shooting venue.    It hung in the Olympic Family area of the Wolf Creek Olympic Shooting Center where members of the International Olympic Committee and other dignitaries were received during the Games.    Helen Bell received an “ISSF Diploma of Honor“ for her work in providing this important part of the celebration of the 1996 Olympic Games.   

Ruth Ann Anderson, working as an Olympic Volunteer in the VIP area of the
Wolf Creek Shooting Venue, welcomes the President of the ISSF, Olegario Vazquez Rana and his wife Gela to the Olympic Family Area.

Today Helen Bell would be thrilled to know that her surprise gift of the “Quilt of Leaves” again hangs in a place of honor at the Gary Anderson CMP Competition Center at Camp Perry, Ohio.

"The Quilt of Leaves" at the Gary Anderson CMP Competition Center

Gary Anderson CMP Competition Center
Camp Perry, Ohio
(photo credit CMP)

Helen Bell

Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall

• Anschütz/Anderson Friendship

Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall

Two pieces of the Berlin Wall - Front

Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall - back

In 1945, at the end of World War II, U. S. military officials evacuated the Anschütz gun-making family out of Zella-Melis, Germany, just ahead of the Red Army that was taking over what was soon to become communist East Germany.  U. S. authorities relocated the Anschütz family in Ulm, Germany.  They were not able to resume manufacturing guns until 1950, but the fact that U. S. officials had rescued them from Soviet domination was clearly reflected in the Anschütz family’s later affection for USA shooters.  By 1959, the Anschütz M1954 smallbore match rifle was beginning to enjoy international successes in the hands of the German shooters and it was beginning to attract the attention of U. S. Army shooters who were growing frustrated with the rifles the Army had Remington and Winchester make for them.  

This was also the time when Dieter Anschütz was becoming active in the management of their newly resurrected factory.  Dieter wisely recognized that if the best shooters in the world used Anschütz rifles, other shooters would buy their products.  He became a regular visitor at international rifle championships where he developed close relationships with the top shooters.  Every day Dieter came to the range with his toolbox to provide service for the Anschütz rifles that were there. 

 Dieter Anschutz  at the Rome Olympic range (1960).  Dieter has his toolbox on the shooting table and is repairing an Olympic competitor’s rifle.

Gary first met Dieter in 1960 in Wiesbaden, Germany where the U. S. Army International Team made its first stop on a five-nation tour of major shooting countries in Western Europe (See “Wheaties and the Olympics”).   While they were there, they discussed how Army team members were unhappy with the Remington rifles the Army provided for them.  Gary described the stock on his rifle as a "modified fence post."  Dieter promised to meet them in Lucerne, Switzerland, which was to be the last stop on the tour, and to bring some Anschütz smallbore rifles for team members to try.  The first Anschütz Gary tried in Lucerne was a right-handed rifle, but he was encouraged enough with its performance that Dieter had a left-handed stock shipped down from Ulm.  It arrived the next day and Gary decided to shoot that rifle in the competition on that day.  Gary did not win, but he was satisfied enough that he bought that rifle from Dieter for $165 and brought it back to the USA.  After trying both his old Remington and his new Anschütz (M54, serial no. 21,158) for several days, he decided to switch to the Anschütz.  Gary used that rifle to win his first 50m 3-Position National Championship that fall as well as his National and World Championship victories in 1962.  He never used another smallbore rifle from that point on and Dieter always made sure he had a great rifle to shoot.

Gary with his first Anschütz in 1960

One of Gary’s fondest memories of his long relationship with Dieter and his family came from the 1962 World Championship in Cairo.  On the night before the 50m individual events, Gary had dinner at the Nile Hilton Hotel with Dieter and his wife Elfi, along with Dieter’s parents.  After dinner, they all took a long walk along the Nile River.  It turned out to be a great way to relax while preparing for what was then the biggest competition of his life.  None of them expected that the next day Anschütz rifles would win all three 50m position championships or that Gary would set his first World Record that day while using his Anschütz.   (see "1157")

Gary in Cairo with the 50m rifle provided by Dieter Anschütz

In 1963 and 1964, Gary attended college and Army Infantry OCS at Fort Benning so he did not go with the Army Team when it went to Europe to compete.  However, by the summer of 1965, he graduated from college and it worked out that he could go to Europe with the Army Team.  The competitions that summer began with the team assembling in Wiesbaden, Germany.  They then traveled to Lucerne, Switzerland for a competition with Switzerland, Italy and Czechoslovakia.  That was to be followed by a competition back in Wiesbaden with the USSR and German teams on the ranges that would host the 1966 World Championship.  The matches in Wiesbaden were especially important because they were the first head-to-head showdown between the USA and USSR since the 1962 World Championship in Cairo, where the USSR retained its number one nation status, and the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, where USA shooters won the medal count.  The big question for USA shooters was whether their victorious Tokyo results were a lucky break or whether the USA really had overtaken the Soviets. 

Gary in Wiesbaden, 1965

Just prior to reporting for active duty with the Army, on June 13, 1965, Gary and Ruth Ann were married in Cheyenne, Wyoming. (See “Farm Boy Meets City Girl”).  Because Ruth Ann was not authorized to fly with the team on a military (MATS) flight, arrangements were made for her to take a commercial flight to Frankfurt to join Gary and the team in Wiesbaden.  This trip became their “honeymoon in Europe.”    Gary made arrangements for the Team Captain to meet Ruth Ann’s plane at Rhein Main Airport and take her to Wiesbaden to join the team.     For a wedding present, Dieter and Elfi gave Gary and Ruth Ann two Hummel figurines.

"Signs of Spring" and "Barnyard Hero" Hummel Figurines,
wedding gift to the Andersons from Dieter and Elfi

The Army Team traveled from Wiesbaden to Ulm, Germany, enroute to Lucerne.   This trip, like all the others, included a visit at the Anschütz factory and another opportunity to connect with Dieter and his family.  A highlight of the stop in Ulm was a delightful evening at the home of Dieter and Elfi Anschütz.   They hosted a big barbeque for the whole team with swimming in their backyard pool, bratwursts, drinks and camaraderie.  It was a wonderful chance to relax before the big competitions in Lucerne and Wiesbaden.

The competitions in Lucerne resulted in USA domination.  Gary won both the 300m 3-Position and the 300m Army Rifle events.  The latter event was a Swiss speciality that was shot with Swiss M31 straight-pull Army rifles. 

Gary with a Swiss Army Rifle, Lucerne, 1965

The competitions in Wiesbaden ended with big USA victories over the USSR in both the 50-meter and 300-meter rifle team events. USA 50m team members were Tommy Pool, Gary, Lones Wigger and Bill Krilling.  USA 300m team members were Jack Foster, Gary, Lones Wigger and Martin Gunnarsson.   These victories were seen as proof that USA rifle shooters had surpassed the Soviets and they set the stage for the USA to become the leading nation in the 1966 World Championships.

50m team members Anderson, Krilling, Wigger and Pool

300m team Anderson, Wigger, Gunnarsson and Foster

A favorite Anderson family Anschütz story occurred a year later after the USA Team won the Gamal Abdel Nasser Trophy that was to be presented to the leading nation in the World Championship medal count (The Egyptians wanted the trophy to go to the USSR, but no matter how they tried to rewrite the rules for awarding the trophy, the USA still won.)  The entire USA Team had a big victory party in the team hotel and both Dieter and Elfi were there to celebrate with them.   The team uniform was an aging grey color and the team hated the suits, but more especially the ties that went with them.  All of the team members wore their “official uniforms” to the party, but at some point in the evening, a pair of scissors appeared and a tie-cutting ceremony ensued.  All of the truncated ties were deposited in a paper bag. The Team Adjutant, LTC Gene Enterkin, was not well liked by the team because he spent much of his time in Germany hunting and not attending to team needs. Rumor has it that Elfi Anschütz and Gary Anderson delivered the bag of hated ties to LTC Enterkin’s room!  

The hated ties were cut and delivered to the Team Adjutant's room.
Team members Wigger, Pool and Anderson with Elfi Anschütz 

The following year, the big championship for the USA team was the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada.  Dieter and Elfi were there to cheer on the USA team that dominated the shooting events in those Games.  When the 1968 Olympics were in Mexico City, Dieter and Elfi were once again there with their beloved shooters.

By 1969, after Gary graduated from San Francisco Theological Seminary, he and Ruth Ann decided to spend a year in Germany where they could live in a German community where no English was spoken and absorb German traditions and shooting customs.   Dieter Anschütz learned about Gary and Ruth Ann’s decision to live in Munich and during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City; he spoke with Konrad Pfeil, the Shützenmeister (Club President) of the largest shooting club in Munich, the Hauptschützengellschaft (HSG), about this.  Konrad quickly made arrangements for a subsidized, furnished apartment in a Munich suburb and invited Gary to become a HSG member.  In 1969, the HSG did not have any strong competition teams, but after a year of training with Gary, they became one of the dominant shooting clubs in Germany.  For Gary and Ruth Ann, this arrangement provided many wonderful opportunities to learn as much as possible about Germany and German shooting traditions.   

  

Membership card for the largest, and oldest shooting club in Munich

Gary and Ruth Ann visited Dieter and Elfi in their home in Ulm several times that year.    On one winter visit, we noticed that the wood burning in their warm and inviting fireplace was reject gun stocks!   Another visit in the summer of 1969 ended with a trip to the emergency room with one of the Anschütz boys.  By then Dieter and Elfi had two sons, Jochen and Ewe.  Dieter was not at home at the time, but we were visiting Elfi.    Their kitchen door had a glass panel that Ewe somehow managed to smash with his arm.   He suffered a deep gash on his arm and was bleeding profusely so we all jumped in our car to take Elfi, Ewe and Jochen to the hospital.  The VW Squareback we drove all over Germany in 1969 became an ambulance on that occasion!    Gary stayed with Elfi and Ewe in the ER while Ruth Ann entertained Jochen in the waiting area.

During that year in Germany, Gary and Ruth Ann were both trying to learn German.  After their language skills progressed, Elfi and Ruth Ann spent many days on the shooting ranges together, with Elfi speaking in German and Ruth Ann speaking in English and both understanding each other very well. 

  

Ruth Ann and Elfi

In 1997, the Anderson Family (Gary, Ruth Ann, son Erik, daughter Kirsten and her husband Ken) visited the Anschütz factory again.    When walking through the factory, we discovered Gary’s picture posted on the workbench of one the gunsmiths.    Gary and Ruth Ann had seen the same pictures in 1965, and they are still there today.

Ruth Ann points out the pictures on the the factory workbench.    Top picture, Gary with Dieter's father Max, and bottom picture, Gary in competition with an Anschütz rifle

Gary with Dieter in his office in Ulm.   

The Anschütz company was founded by Dieter’s  great- grandfather, Julius Gottfried Anschütz, in 1856.  It was originally located in the Thuringian city of Zella-Mehlis, about 10 km from Suhl, which was the arms making capital of Germany through World War II.  Julius Gottlieb Anschütz enlarged the company several times and employed around 550 workers in 1935. 

  

The original Anschütz factory in Zella-Mehlis

When Thuringia became part of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) after 1945, the company was shut down and completely dismantled.   The evacuation of the Anschütz family to the west part of Germany after the war prevented their arms making genius from being used by the communists, but the company’s equipment was expropriated and lost.   In 1950, the company was re-established in Ulm, with 7 workers.   The number of employees rose quickly to 250.  The re-establishment of the company after the war was due to the overwhelming will of the brothers Max (Dieter’s father) and Rudolf Anschütz.   In their new surroundings they led the company to new successes and proved to be veritable successors of their grandfather.   Dieter took over the company in 1968.    He retired in 2008 and today the firm is headed by Dieter’s son Jochen.

The Anschütz factory today in Ulm, Germany

When Dieter took over the company in 1968, the Berlin Wall had been up for 7 years.  It represented a despised physical barrier as well as a symbolic boundary between communism and democracy during the Cold War.     The wall came down on November 9, 1989.  By then Gary had been retired from active international shooting competition for 20 years and had become a leader in the ISSF where he was especially active in promoting international shooting competitions as a way to bring the youth of these two divided systems together.  Just two months after the Berlin wall came down, Dieter presented Gary with two pieces of the Wall mounted on a base and entwined with barbed wire.   The pieces were taken from the wall by a target shooter from the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. The presentation was made at the Shot Show in January 1990 during a Sport Writer’s Breakfast.  

Dieter presents "Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall" to Gary in 1990

The inscription on the memento reads:

"Building People"

On November 9, 1989 the infamous Berlin Wall fell.  Constructed on August 13, 1961 it was a barrier that tyranny had erected between the subjugated peoples of the East and the free peoples of the West.  These pieces were taken from that wall in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin.

This is presented in appreciation to Gary L. Anderson for his untiring efforts as a leader to promote international understanding among young people through shooting competition.  It is a memorial to one of the most significant events in our time and his contribution to it.

J.G.Anschütz GmbH 

January 18, 1990

“International sports competition including shooting competition is one of the great ways to tear down misunderstanding among peoples and build peace.” (-Gary L. Anderson, US Olympic Gold Medalist.)  

Gary later told Dieter that it was a “tremendous honor” to share with him the joy and emotion that resulted from the breaking of the Berlin Wall and the tearing down of the iron curtain.    The Anschütz firm has always represented perfection and attention to detail, but more importantly it strived to help bring shooting sport communities all over the world together.   This gift from Dieter and Elfi Anschütz has become one of the Andersons’ most prized possessions.  We are so honored to count them among our closest international friends.   

1964 Olympics

• POST-TOKYO APPEARANCES, INVITATIONS

"An Old Royal Typewriter"

After Gary returned from Tokyo, he was inundated with requests for speaking, mostly for athletic sports banquets and civic organizations in towns throughout the State of Nebraska.  At the time, Gary was enrolled in Hastings College, Hastings, NE, where he was carrying a full course load and also serving as Student Body President.  He was obviously very busy, but he enjoyed speaking to these groups and the messages he gave helped to clarify his ideas about the importance of sports participation and striving for excellence.  Much of his appeal was due to the fact that he was the first Olympic individual gold medal winner ever from Nebraska.  From a file of newspaper clippings, here is a list of some of these appearances:

Hastings Optimist Club, Hastings, NE

Plainsmen Rifle and Pistol Club, Imperial, NE

Commencement Address, Nelson High School, Nelson, NE

“Eyes on Nebraska” Award, Hastings, NE

Cosmopolitan Club, Hastings, NE

Lions Club, Elm Creek, NE

Sumner HS Annual Banquet, Sumner, NE

Wilcox High School Athletic Banquet, Wilcox, NE

Fillmore County Extension Banquet, Geneva, NE

Boy and Cub Scouts, Holdrege, NE

Eagle Scout Court of Honor, Fairbury, NE

Papillion Air Gun Club, Papillion, NE

Nebraska National Guard Marksmanship Training Unit Banquet, Lincoln, NE

Hastings Chamber of Commerce, Hastings, NE

Westside High School All Sports Banquet, Omaha, NE

Blue and Gold Banquet, Wilcox, NE

Grace United Presbyterian Stewardship Family Dinner, Council Bluffs, NE

A sample of a sport banquet flyer.   Notice the cost for an adult:  $1.00.

Speaking engagements and appearances outside of NE included:

 “Boy Scout Day in City Government,” Santa Rosa, CA

International Jaycees BB Gun Banquet of Champions, Tulsa, OK;

     Hutchinson, KS; Rogers, AR

“Salute to Shooters and Hunters,” Amateur Trap Shooting Association, 

     Vandalia, OH

Non-Powder Gun Products Association, Chicago, IL

Santa Fe Junior Rifle Club, Santa Fe, NM

Other notable appearances:

Inaugural Ball for Gov. and Mrs. Frank B. Morrison in Lincoln, NE

To Tell the Truth TV Show, NYC

A thank you letter from Governor Morrison for attending his Inaugural Ball.

Instructions for the Daytime TV Show "To Tell the Truth."   Gary was the "truthful" contestant; the others were impostors.    

Ruth Ann often accompanied Gary to sports banquet appearances in and around Hastings, but she had to get special permission from the Dean of Women to return to her dorm after 10pm curfews.    Gary’s invitations to speak arrived by mail or phone call; there was no Internet, cell phones, or texting at the time.    Ruth Ann knew shorthand and Gary dictated responses, then Ruth Ann typed letters of acceptance on an old Royal typewriter, with whiteout and carbon paper.    Because of strict “amateur athlete” guidelines concerning Olympians receiving money for endorsements or speaking engagements, Gary could only ask for “gas money.”  

The school children in Gary’s hometown of Axtell, NE produced a banner that depicted Gary’s journey from the farm, to Hastings College, to Tokyo.    It was drawn on butcher block paper and exhibited during a special “Gary Anderson Night” celebration.   We have preserved this through the years along with the Gary Anderson paper doll.

The three panel mural drawn by students of Axtell school

The Gary Anderson paper doll that went with the mural.

Gary’s hometown of Axtell, NE (population 350) honored him with a terrific welcome home evening.   Over one thousand persons welcomed their Olympic hero for “Gary Anderson Night” at the high school auditorium (filled to capacity).    Admirers from Axtell and surrounding communities came to honor their local hero.   Gary spoke to the crowd about his experiences in Tokyo, saying winning the gold medal was “the biggest thrill of my life.”   He showed slides, signed autographs, and displayed his guns and medal.

Gary's hometown of Axtell, NE welcomes home their Olympic Champion.

Signing autographs

The townspeople surprised Gary by declaring “Gary Anderson Night” and establishing a scholarship fund for seminary.  The Axtell scholarship helped cover the cost of books when he enrolled at San Francisco Theological Seminary later that year.

Proclamation declaring "Gary Anderson Night" in Axtell
November 10, 1964

Gary, in responding to these tributes, said “I find it harder to say thanks the way I want to for this evening, than it was to practice for five or six hours a day to win the gold medal.…The way people have treated me since my return makes me proud that I won a gold medal for the greatest nation in the world.”

Years later, Axtell further honored their home town boy by including his name and Olympic victory in a centennial plaque at the City Park (last paragraph):