MTA Hall Of Fame

John Beuning, MD and Maureen Beuning
St. Cloud, MN

Elected: 1987
Supporting Members

John began informal trapshooting in 1929, registered shooting in the early thirties, and continued ever since.  He recalls registered shoots held in such unusual places as a sandpit south of St. Cloud, at Ft.
Snelling, at the Minnesota State Fair, and at Fawcett’s Breezy Point lodge on Pelican Lake.  He has been active in local and State trapshooting organizations throughout his entire career, serving as president of local clubs, and also the MTA in 1978. 

Among John’s major wins he includes the Sioux Indian Singles Championship with 199 X 200, followed by a 25 X 25 shootoff to top Henry Hein’s 24 X 25.  Another satisfying memory is winning the Minnesota Veteran Championship with 198 X 200 at age 80 years. John and Maureen have taken four shooting sports training sessions conducted by the NRA at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and over the past twelve years have coached
more than 800 beginning and intermediate level shooting students.  Maureen has also conducted NRA workshops for Junior Olympic Camp Directors and coaches.

Maureen became active in shooting sports in 1947, and began registered trapshooting in 1962.  She has been a Board of Director member of the Central Minnesota Gun Club for nearly twenty years and served two terms as president of the CMGC.  She has been the Public Relations Chairperson for the CMGC for seventeen years, and did the newspaper, radio, and TV publicity for the MTA for ten years.  She wrote a weekly newspaper column in Outdoor News titled “Trapshooting Lore and Score,” from 1974 to 1986.  Maureen has written trapshooting and hunting articles published in Trap and Field, The American Rifleman, Outdoor Life, Alaska, and Upper Midwest Trapshooting magazines.  Both John and Maureen are listed as contributors to the book,  “The Basics of Shotgun Shooting,” published by the NRA in 1985.

Maureen’s major wins include the Minnesota State Ladies Singles Championship in 1973 with 196 X 200, and the Minnesota Ladies Handicap Championship in 1972 and 1974.  She also won the Northern Zone Ladies title, followed by the Minnesota Ladies Champion of Champions trophy with 285 X 300 in 1973.

Maureen initiated three college credit shooting sports courses at St. Cloud State University in 1975.  Both John and Maureen continued to teach these classes in Beginning and Advanced Trapshooting, and Rifle
Marksmanship from 1976 through 1986.  Maureen founded the SCSU Trapshooting Club, and served as advisor and coach for 10 years.  In 1983, the SCSU Trap Team won the Runner-up trophy at the National Intercollegiate Tournament in Peoria, Illinois.

John and Maureen organized, directed and coached NRA Minnesota Junior Olympic Shooting Program (JOSP) summer trapshooting camps for intermediate level juniors.  They had the pleasure of seeing one of their JOSP shooters, Erick Wigand, Crookston, MN, accepted in the US Olympic Development Shooting Team.  Another JOSP shooter, Randy Moeller, was awarded a four year trapshooting scholarship at George Mason University.  The Beunings are still coaching junior shooters in the CMGC Youth Trapshooting Program.

Maureen served on the Governor’s Task Force on International Shooting, and the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission. She was a past member
of Outdoor Writers Association, and wrote a weekly shooting sports column for Outdoor Outlines for thirteen years. She had articles published in The American Rifleman; Outdoor Life; Alaska Magazine; Good Housekeeping; Trap and Field; and other sporting magazines. She held a Private Pilot’s license.

She was past president and a ten year Board of Directors member of the Stearns County Historical Society, past president of the Stearns-Benton Medical Alliance, past president of the Central Minnesota Gun Club, past president of the St. Cloud Area Genealogists, and past president of the St. Monica’s Christian Mothers in Sartell; founder, facilitator and twenty-six year volunteer for the St. Cloud Stroke Support Group.

Maureen was a member of the Minnesota Historical Society; Stearns County Historical Society; Minnesota Territorial Pioneers; St. Cloud Area Genealogists; Retired Physician’s Group, Stearns-Benton Medical
Alliance; Safari Club International; Minnesota Deer Hunters; National Rifle Association; Daughters of Isabella; and St. Monica’s Christian Mothers.

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