The World is a better place for Randy having been here.
Randy was quite simply....a quality person.
I cherish the memory of our debates on the .30 caliber 'slow/short/light vs. fast/long/heavy' as applied to the .30 caliber HBR guns. We held our annual 'debates' at the Wi. State NBRSA Hunter Championships at Van Dyne, Wi. each year. I'd walk over to the tent where he and Hank Kulhawick were loading and he'd get that sparkle in his eye and say something like "Well, let's get to it!"
His sense of irony, humor and his ability to poke fun at himself was legendary. At the IBS Score Nationals in Dublin, Ga., he won the Hunter Grand. He was recovering from prostate surgery and the win was especially sweet not only for him but for those of us that knew what he'd been through. He told me he was proud that he and I both would have our names on the IBS traveling trophy. I threatened to improvise a chair and we'd carry him into the awards ceremony like they do the Palma champions. He told me: "If you guys do that, you're likely to all get wet!" Then he added: "I bet this is the only time someone won it while wearing Depends!"
His story of leaving the tip at a Kansas City steakhouse when we were there for the NBRSA Hunter Nationals cracks me up to this day!
Randy was an engineer at Kennametal and held several individual patents for cutting tools used in the machine tool industry. In fact, if you're a user of the Kennametal cutting tooling in your machine tool operations, you've been touched by a little of his engineering skills.
This picture was taken at Van Dyne, Wi. NBRSA Hunter event. Randy is at the upper right, Mark Taylor to his right, Wade Hunniwell and the late Ron Shultz is at the upper left. Lower right (kneeling) is Grand Agg winner Tom Hencken and myself (kneeling, lower left).
