Pigeon shoot plans $5 fee at gate
August 7, 1990
Pottsville (PA.) Republican
By Karen Hube
For the first time, the Hegins Park Association is planning to impose a $5 admission fee to enter the grounds the Fred Coleman Memorial Pigeon Shoot this year.
Shoot planner Robert Tobash said this morning the fee is not aimed at animal-rights activists who showed up at the event by the hundreds last year. Those who pay the $5 fee will get the same amount in tickets to spend at the picnic.
The Labor Day shoot is a fundraiser for the Hegins Park Association that raised $15,000 last year and killed over 6,000 pigeons.
However, Steven Hindi of Plano, Ill., who wants to end the shoot forever, wants people attending the event to be given a choice of what their $5 will benefit.
Hindi has proposed that those paying the fee be given the option to have their $5 go to the Schuylkill County Rape Crisis Center and Schuylkill Women in Crisis or the park.
Tobash said the entry fee would not accumulate extra funds for the park association because the shooters’ entry fee would go toward their $90 competition fee, and picnickers would get tickets with the $5.
Tobash was not available tater this morning to comment on whether the shoot planners may agree to donate the entry fee to the social service agencies.
“By all means charge the $5 and let us send the money to women’s groups so we’d get something positive out of this,” said Hindi. In June, Hindi staked $10,000 and the future of the event on a challenge to a physical confrontation with Tobash.
And, in a more recent challenge, Hindi sent a letter dated Monday to James P. Diehl, former solicitor for the Hegins shoot planners, asking him to agree to a debate. Hindi said he would agree to a panel of shoot supporters including state Reps. David G. Argall, R-124; Bob Allen, R-125; Edward J. Lucyk, D-123; and state Sen. James J. Rhoades, R-29; who have spoken up in favor of the shoot.
“A live debate, covered by the media, would allow both sides to ‘fight it out’ without risk to our bodies,” Hindi wrote in Monday’s letter.
“Who knows, they may convince me that what they’re doing is OK,” he said. There would be no stakes on the debated, though Hindi said he hopes to sway some of the supporters to see the activists’ point of view.
Shooters call the event of 55 years a tradition and a sport, clashing with activists who say the shoot is a massacre and a show of blood letting.
So far, Hindi has received no response from the Tobash or other shoot planners.
He has put of $5,000 in a Schuylkill County bank account to prove his is serious and that his challenge to a fight is not a “publicity ploy,” which Tobash and a spokesman for the fair committee have labeled it. Hindi has also said he will take on a reasonable substitute for Tobash in the challenge.
Hindi said his last letter sent to Tobash was sent back with “Don’t want” written on it.
Another response that has yet to come is from Gov. Robert P. Casey, in answer to a letter by Hindi sent last week asking that Casey state his position on the Hegins shoot.
During the shoot, each contestant stands about 30 yards from pigeon traps and shoots at the birds when they are released. Young “trap boys” are hired to catch maimed pigeons and wring their necks.
The tradition of hiring the young boys to kill the pigeons with their hands is another area of dispute.
