Hutchison's Amy Gentry signs with UAF rifle

Danny Martin Dmartin@newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — The Alaska Nanooks rifle program gained a second-degree black belt in taekwondo and a contestant in the upcoming Miss Teenage International Pageant.

Hutchison High School senior Amy Gentry also is one of the best youth shooters in Alaska.

In Hutchison’s commons area Wednesday afternoon, Gentry wore a Nanooks cap as she sat between her parents, Patricia and John, and signed a National Letter of Intent with the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ rifle program.

“I really like the environment and the coach (Dan Jordan) is really great,” Gentry said of the Nanooks during the ceremony, which drew a turnout of friends, Hutchison teammates, staff and administrators.

“All the team members are really supportive,” she added. “I kind of wanted to stay home and this is my No. 1 choice.”

John Gentry said it’s awesome that his family gets to watch Amy compete for a Nanooks program which has 10 NCAA team championships in its history.

“I think it’s going to be fun to watch her grow with that team, which I know she’s going to do,” John Gentry said. “We’re tickled, of course, that she’s going to stay in town; but if she had wanted to go somewhere else, we would have supported that, as well.

“It was her decision to go to school (college) here and we’re happy that she decided that,” he added.

Amy Gentry’s decision to shoot for the Nanooks and attend UAF actually began when she was in the ninth grade, which also was her first year of competing in rifle. Patricia Gentry, who also coached Hutchison’s rifle team this past season, said other college coaches scouted her daughter, but Amy was set on being a Nanook.

“I attended a couple of matches there and I saw how everything flows,” Amy Gentry, during the signing ceremony, said the E.F. Horton Range in the UAF Patty Center.

“I really liked shooting at UAF — regionals (Mid Alaska Conference tournaments) and different matches up there —, and I kind of got to know the shooters a little bit,” she continued. “They were always friendly toward me and accepted me a little bit, and I just felt comfortable there.”

Her experience in Alaska and in national events should help her adjust to shooting for the Nanooks at the NCAA Division I level.

Her accomplishments on the range include winning the women’s smallbore and air rifle titles in the Alaska State Qualifying Junior Olympic Rifle Championships last December in the E.F. Horton Range.

Earlier that month at UAF’s range, she helped Hutchison win the smallbore team title in the Mid Alaska Conference Championships, which she also finished as the individual runner-up in smallbore and third individually for air rifle.

She also helped Hutchison take the MAC smallbore team honor in 2013 and a year later, she captured the MAC individual smallbore title and placed third in air rifle.

This past March, Gentry garnered the smallbore and air rifle titles at the Alaska State Junior Sectionals in Delta Junction.

Gentry placed sixth last July at the American Legion Junior Three-Position Rifle National Championships in the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“Amy is a very old soul,” Patricia Gentry said. “She’s dedicated and determined, and when she sets her sights on something, she’ll accomplish it just by perseverance.

“She’s an amazing person and I couldn’t be prouder of her,’’ she added. “She’s taken us on a journey we never expected to take. Since ninth grade, when she told me she wanted to try out for the (Hutchison) rifle team and made it, she’s succeeded in ways we never even imagined.”

Before she heads to UAF to work for a business administration degree and shoot for the Nanooks, Gentry has a summer that includes the USA Shooting Rifle/Pistoal National Championships in Fort Benning, Georgia, on June 22-29 and representing Alaska at the Miss Teen International Pageant in Jacksonville, Florida, on July 28 and 30.

Gentry went through an application process for the pageant, which according to its website, promotes teens ages 13-18 and their accomplishments, and helps them to work with others to become positive role models.

“They’ve never had anyone enter the pageant who is a second-degree black belt, a sharpshooter and hunts moose and fishes,’’ Patricia Gentry said.