{"id":33000,"date":"2023-07-08T23:51:01","date_gmt":"2023-07-09T05:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-local-rayanne-mcclure-shoots-for-the-stars-while-also-going-to-nursing-school\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:05:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:05:17","slug":"cortez-local-rayanne-mcclure-shoots-for-the-stars-while-also-going-to-nursing-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-local-rayanne-mcclure-shoots-for-the-stars-while-also-going-to-nursing-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez local Rayanne McClure shoots for the stars while also going to nursing school"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rayanne
Rayanne McClure poses with her first place trophy. (Rayanne McClure\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Rayanne McClure of Cortez has been shooting competitively for nearly nine years, and now shoots while also attending nursing school.<\/p>\n

McClure\u2019s brother initially got her into the sport when he shot competitively in Cortez with the Junior NRA shooting club before joining the U.S. Marine Corps.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe kind of forced me into it, and I fell in love with it,\u201d McClure said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went to the Marines and kind of got away from it, but he definitely inspired me to do it and to continue to do it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

McClure has shot only with Cortez\u2019s Junior NRA shooting club but will now move on to a new club after turning 21.<\/p>\n

McClure won her last match, firing from the prone position against 49 other competitors in Grand Junction. She shoots with an Anschutz .22-caliber rifle, a German competition-grade rifle with a trigger pull of 2 to 4 ounces.<\/p>\n

She also shot in the team competitions with her team consisting of Eli Bowman, Karissa Coley and Alana Coley, and said they won every competition except for one this season.<\/p>\n

\"The
The shooting team Rayanne McClure competed on won every match they shot this year except one. The team consisted of Eli Bowman, sisters Karissa Coley and Alana Coley and McClure. (Rayanne McClure\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of my team this season, especially since shooting sports are such a male-dominated sport,\u201d she said. \u201cOur team was mostly girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2021, McClure qualified as a Distinguished Expert after four years of working toward it. The distinction \u201cis the highest individual honor for excellence in the NRA\u2019s marksmanship competitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, my proficiency in the sport has only gotten better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Rayanne
Rayanne McClure achieved her distingushed expert distinction in the sport in 2021. (Rayanne McClure\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

McClure said one of the biggest and most memorable shooting events she\u2019s done thus far was an event in Colorado Springs a few years ago where she and some of her fellow club members shot against Olympic shooters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did OK for where I was,\u201d McClure said. \u201cIt was definitely eye-opening to see how talented they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only did the event give McClure a taste of what it would be like to shoot at that elite level, but it also inspired her to continue working and shoot for competing at the Olympics herself one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to give it a shot,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely a goal for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until then, McClure is continuing to shoot and finding her shooting niche without the Junior Shooters. She is attending classes online at USC Cal State with the hopes of becoming a flight medic.<\/p>\n

Once she finishes her prerequisites online, she will start attending college in person and will look for a shooting club in her new college town to keep working toward both of her goals.<\/p>\n

When asked about her time in the Junior Shooters, McClure said her club \u201cis the coolest there.\u201d She said all coaches for the club are volunteers, and those who join the club don\u2019t have to own or provide their own firearm, ammunition or gear. It is all provided to youths who join the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all super-good people, and it\u2019s a really good club,\u201d McClure said. \u201cI encourage any young person who\u2019s even slightly interested to look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

studying to be a flight medic while also shooting competitively<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29,390],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-shooting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82017,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33000\/revisions\/82017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33000"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}