BONNIE SKOGLIE • Provided to Great Basin Sun
Dave Skoglie gets ready to throw a ringer in the Elko tournament last weekend.
Lovelock's horseshoe players have exciting competitions ahead of them this summer but they can't be two places at once.
The Frontier Days Horseshoe Tournament takes place at McDougal Park on Aug. 3-4.
The father-son team of Dennis and Lee Houston are playing in what promises to be a fun and competitive tournament.
Dave Johnson and the Houston’s are organizing the event which usually draws big crowds. Singles are on Saturday and doubles on Sunday.
Registration is at 9 a.m. and start time at 10 a.m. It costs $20 per person, which is added to the purse.
Meanwhile, the National Horseshoe Pitching Association (NHPA) chose Tri-Cities, Wash. for the 2024 (and 2027) World Horseshoe Pitching Championships.
It takes place July 29 through Aug. 10. Six hundred people have signed up to compete. Of those, 175 are over sixty-five.
Dave Skoglie (PCHS Class of 1971) will represent Lovelock in the 65+ category.
As a sixth grader, Skoglie joined the school bowling team. Back then, Lovelock had a bowling alley where he developed the some of the skills, he now uses in horseshoe competitions.
"I didn't start shoes until high school, but the transition from bowling to horseshoes seemed natural," he says. He still occasionally bowls but horseshoes is his favorite. He likes playing an outdoor game.
For a long time, Lovelock had the only pits in northern Nevada sanctioned by the NHPA. As horseshoes gains in popularity, more have followed.
At McDougal, Skoglie, Jason Coyle, Dennis and Lee Houston and Johnson led the construction and maintenance of five pits with concrete runways and dune sand - a setup worthy of World Champions.