By Marty Liggins

The Sugarbugs Celebrity Shoot is a celebrity-shoot/benefit concert and auction that started out as a political fundraiser for Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) when he was behind in the polls and needed to generate recognition, support, and funds. The Celebrity Shoot did all three.

Eventually it became a fundraiser for charitable efforts, then specifically for the Sugarbugs charity: childhood diabetes.

The shooting portion of the event has been at several places in the Nashville area. But the concert has always been at the Wild Horse Saloon in downtown Nashville.

If you point your browser to www.sugarbugs.org you can find the mission statement of the charity. In essence they are a group that is trying to educate people about coping with diabetes and support patients.

This year the match was moved to the Big Springs shooting park in Murfreesboro, TN. Big Springs has trap, skeet, and sporting clays ranges on site. The course of fire was changed from 50 trap and 25 skeet targets to 50 trap and 50 sporting clays.

As far as how "easy" it was: out of 137 shooters, there were no perfect scores in sporting clays. Only ten shooters were at 45 or above. About a third of the field (37 shooters) were at 40 or better. So it was not a cakewalk, but definitely not a tough-as-nails course. It appeared that most of the shooters liked the variety presented and felt that the course was reasonable for the event.

This is a celebrity-oriented fundraiser, so you would expect to be able to see a few. There were several, enough to put one on each team of five, plus field five all-celebrity teams I had several opportunities to be around some of them and was impressed with their interest in the charity as well as their willingness to contribute to the cause.

There are two silent auctions, one at the Wild Horse and one at the range.

On Friday night there is also a live auction and concert at the Wild Horse Tavern downtown. The auction is of donated items, many of them from well-known personalities, and helps raise money for the charity. This year there were things such as a hat worn and signed by Alan Jackson, a PT Cruiser, Harley Davidson, and the shoes off Terri Clark's feet along with the opportunity to sing with her on stage!

When you can go to a shooting range and shoot a round of trap or sporting clays, why would anyone want to give $300 (or more) per person for a five-person team to be entered into a competition? For the celebrities, why lend your presence and influence to an event like this?

One reason is that it's a charity event. It's like those cookies you buy from the Girl Scouts each year. You pay more than fair market value because you feel that you are making a contribution to a worthy cause. Stop and think about it. You give a Girl Scout five bucks for a box of, what is it now, ten cookies? But you could simply go to Wal-Mart and buy a two pound bag of cookies for three bucks. Why is it that we buy from the little girl in the green skirt?

Because most Americans like to feel that they are "giving something back" to the community. We support Girl Scouts, and Boy Scouts, 4-H, the local schools, the local hospital, and various other efforts to promote goodwill in the community.

Celebrities, politicians, shooters, guns, targets, and a good cause. What better way is there to spend a weekend?

For the full Sugarbugs Nashville Celebrity Shoot Story, See the Sept/Oct print edition of Women & Guns