East Coweta High School student Glen Lauzon has qualified for this year’s Junior Olympics air rifle competition. A junior at ECHS, 17-year-old Lauzon is a member of East Coweta’s air rifle team and a Marine Corps JROTC cadet with the rank of sergeant.
Lauzon will participate in the Junior Olympics men’s rifle competitions held at the Olympics Training Center in Colorado Springs in April after coming in first at the state Junior Olympics tryouts held Jan. 11 in Griffin.
Lauzon posted an automatic qualifying score of 581 in the Men’s 60-shot Precision Air Rifle qualifiers at the Jan. 11 Junior Olympic Trials and will compete in the national Junior Olympics 17-21 year-old men’s category, said Coweta County School System spokesman Dean Jackson.
“Glen has worked very hard all year and deserves this significant achievement,” said Major Pete Merrill, senior instructor for East Coweta’s Marine Corps JROTC. “He shoots just about every weekend at local and regional matches. He has been a very consistent shooter and has served as an excellent example to the rest of the team. He is very knowledgeable about the finer details and mental toughness of competitive shooting.”
Jackson said Lauzon has been participating in shooting sports for several years, including two years with the Coweta 4-H BB Gun team and later on the 4-H Air Rifle team and for the last three years on the East Coweta High School Air Rifle team under JROTC Master Sargent Bill Reitz and Major Merrill. He has competed in several southeastern states and among his accomplishments in the sport, Lauzon has won numerous gold medals in Georgia and Alabama competitions, placed 9th in the nation at Marine Corps Nationals in his Freshman year. In 2013, Lauzon was 4th overall in the East Coweta’s Area 5 Georgia High School Association region, the American legion Post 13 champion, Georgia NRA champion and 3rd in the nation in that competition, Jackson said.
“I’m stoked,” said Lauzon, about his performance at this year’s Georgia qualifiers. “It was a goal of mine to make it to these competitions this year.”
Jackson said Lauzon qualified for Junior Olympics competitions last year in the younger men’s category, but declined to participate so that he could join his East Coweta teammates in state rifle finals instead.
“It’s something you can always improve on. I’m a perfectionist, so it appeals to me,” Lauzon said of the challenge of precision shooting.
Jackson said the East Coweta rifle team has also done well. The team is currently 7-0 in the Georgia High School Area 5 standings. Along with Lauzon, team members Destiny Collier, Alexandria Wright and John Satterfield have all automatically qualified to shoot as individuals in Georgia State Championships as a result of shooting 290 or above in one of the season matches. Lauzon and teammates Collier and Wright are all in the top 7 for GHSA area rifle competitors.
Lauzon will compete in the Junior Olympics event April 21-27. Before that, he and his East Coweta teammates have qualified (at 2nd place) to shoot in the Marine Corps JROTC Championships on Feb. 15 and 16 in Anniston, Ala.
