General News
22 May, 2026
Suns out, guns out?
Shotguns were oiled up and looking shiny with 47 student faces eager and keen on the first morning of the Interschool 2 Day shoot, co-hosted by Clifton State High School and the Clifton Benchrest Shooting Club Inc.
Day 1 on Thursday saw students from a total of 18 schools from as far west as St. John’s Roma, to Woodenbong State High School in the south and as far north east as Toogoolawah State High School, with total nominations adding to 120 shooters across the two days in total.
Schools that braved the windy conditions on day one at Laurie Bowe Rifle Range were Allora State School, Concordia, Downlands, Faith Christian College Brisbane, Toowoomba Grammar, Harristown State High, Oakey State High, Pittsworth State High, St, Joey’s Toowoomba, St. Saviours Toowoomba, St. Mary’s Toowoomba, St. John’s Catholic College Roma, Toowoomba Anglican School (T.A.S), Toowoomba Trade School and Woodenbong State High and host school Clifton State High School.
The weather wasn’t anything to write home about, with wind doing its best to blow a fair gale pretty much the entire day, but it certainly wasn’t enough to spoil the spirits.
Mr David Brown who landed his own plane at Bange’s Airfield to be in attendance spoke at the presentations about the importance of grass roots bush shoots like Clifton’s and the importance of keeping them running for the future livelihood of the sport.
The high school students travelled from across South East Queensland and Northern N.S.W. to test their clay target shooting skills in a 75 x shot target event.
A Grade winner was local legend Alex (Iceman) Atwell who shot his way to first place after a late start due to a Yr 12 English exam in town.
Second place was tied up by another Yr 12 student Clay Shaw from the N.S.W. school of Woodenbong State High.
Third and fourth places, with no real surprises, were wrapped up by in form CSHS shooters Thane Hilton and Will Horton respectively.
Hilton deserves a special mention as he shot his way back into CSHS’s number one team after an unusually tough day on the scoreboard at Texas recently.
B Grade winner was western shooter Hudson Thomas from St. Johns Catholic College, Roma.
Billy Luct (Toowoomba Grammar) took out second place with Concordia’s returning shooter from 2025 William Spoelder taking out third and local club junior shooter Jack Warburton taking out fourth.
Jack Logan (Downlands College) took out first place in C Grade, while Amelia Steffan from St. Saviour’s wasn’t going to be intimidated by the boys and shot her way into 2nd place.
Toby Atwell (CSHS) took out third and all the way from Goondiwindi and definitely no stranger to
the Interschool shoot arena was Jorja Cairns in fourth place.
The State of Origin shield is a calculation of the top three shooters from each state on the day.
Top three cane toads taking home the shield for Queensland, in order were Alex Atwell (CSHS), Hudson Thomas (Roma) and Thane Hilton (CSHS) with a total of 288 points, closely followed by the Blues shooters on 234 which consisted of three Woodenbong boys Clay Shaw, Gus Moloney and Ryan McMahon.
Winning school shotgun team, for the second year on the trot, were the hosts themselves from Clifton High School which consisted of Alex Atwell (C), Emily Van Tuinen and Will Horton.
The second placed school team was a combo team of Billy Luct (Toowoomba Grammar), Hudson Thomas (St. John’s Roma) and Jack Logan (Downlands College).
Third placed school team was the Woodenbong boys Clay Shaw (c), Ryan McMahon and Gus Moloney.
On it Friday was time for a total of 74 students to test their skills in the 50m, 50 shot, rimfire target event.
The wind was a little more favourable, but definitely hung around providing a light consistent breeze all day.
Clifton High just couldn’t quite get the job done to defend its title from 2025 in the School teams division and came second place to Concordia’s winning team of Aussie Knopke, Lane Clarke and Brock Gililand.
Coming in third, just from down the road, was Pittsworth State High School’s number one team which consisted of Dylan Binstead, Liam Rauchle and Aimee Blinco.
Top 10 Rifle shooters on the day were as follows:
1st Crowd favourite Jack Munroe (aka Joe Dirt - Toogoolawah) on 384.7
2nd Liam Dau (Woodenbong State High) on 378.15
3rd Clay Shaw (Woodenbong State High) on 374.10
4th Travis Bellingham (St Joey’s Toowoomba)
5th Joe Brown (C.S.H.S)
6th Dan Kirby (C.S.H.S)
7th Cooper Steffan (Harristown High)
8th Sharna Mason (St Joey’s Toowoomba)
9th Lane Clark (Concordia)
10th Jorja Cairns (Goondiwindi)
Competitors who shot on both days had their scores tallied and the two day Aggregate Winners for Semester 1, 2026 were Clay Shaw from Woodenbong on 474 for the men’s and for the women’s it was Jorja Cairns (Goondiwindi) who climbed the podium on a total points score of 431.
Clifton Benchrest Shooting Club Vice President Ashleigh Brown commented, “We host the only two day multi-discipline shoot in the country at the Laurie Bowe range……we did have claim to the only Interschool rifle shoot in Queensland, but last year we went one better, turning it into a ‘2 Day event’ and it’s now the only 2 Day Interschool event of its kind run in Australia and we pride ourselves on hosting it and hosting it well.”
“The range is subject to strict annual audits by Weapons Licensing, Queensland and In the auditor’s report they commended us on our Juniors program and the close affiliation with our High School sports program.
“The summary at the conclusion of the two day audit stated that our club had an ‘exemplary model’ of a highly functioning Juniors program at a club, that co-exists with their local school,” Ashleigh Brown said.
CSHS teacher Brendon Thorpe said the club has been hosting Interschool shoots at the Laurie Bowe Rifle Range for five years now in conjunction with Clifton State High School.
“It’s no news to anyone that we have a great affiliation with C.B.S.C with both our 12 year strong weekly school Friday sports rifle shoots and the Interschool shoots that we host together
“It’s something which sets our school apart from all the others, something we can offer that no other High school currently has,” Mr. Thorpe said.
