Billy Hicks (sport shooter)
Billy G. Hicks (born 1927) is an expert moving target shooter, and distinguished himself in high speed moving target competitions around the world and the United States from 1965-1981.
He began shooting trap and skeet in 1961, and by 1965 was training on Olympic trap ranges. Olympic trap targets travel out of the bunker at 90 miles per hour, versus the 50 mile per hour rate of standard trap and skeet. He became a member of the United States World Championship Trap and Skeet Team in 1966.[1] His hit ratio on Olympic moving trap and skeet targets was 98.8%, and he was considered to be one of the United States Marine Corps' best Olympic clay target shooters.
In 1966 his team won gold for their country at the Olympic trap World Championships in Wiesbaden, Germany. The team consisted of Billy Hicks, Gordon Horner, Charles Jenson, and Ken Jones. This is also the event where he earned the highest award to be given to any United States shooter, the U.S. International Distinguished Shooter Badge (his number is #100[2]).
The following year, Hicks was again picked as part of the four man U.S. Team to compete for gold in Bologna Italy, along with James Beck, Chris Bishop, and Richard Loffelmacher. His team won the silver that year.[3]
Billy Hicks was confirmed by the NRA as the first American to fire a perfect 200 x 200 straight in Olympic trap, at the Preliminary Olympic International Clay Pigeon Competition in Thurmont Maryland on May 19, 1968.
At the end of his military career, Hicks held a gold, silver, and bronze medal in International Shooting awarded at both the Wiesbaden and Bologna ISSF events. He retired from the United States Marine Corps in 1971, and began a career as a shooting instructor at Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier PA. He continued to shoot in the ATA circuit. He was awarded the South Eastern States Clay Pigeon Championship - NRA Civilian Champion Award in 1972.
In 1981, at the age of 54 he again distinguished himself as one of the foremost moving target shooters in the Live Bird World Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico. Hicks competed with over 600 of the world's top moving target shooters for two days straight in a "miss and out" competition (miss one bird and you're out of the competition). He came in second in the world for the United States.
Hicks retired from trap and skeet shooting in 1988.