Students learn hunting safety from expert

    A group of nine seventh graders are enrolled in an after-school class about hunter safety that will run through Thursday at the Washington Junior High. The group receives instruction from Jim Cuddeback, a man who has been teaching this very course every year for the past 31 years. Cuddeback spent Monday showing the students a few of his guns and educating them in how to safely handle them.

    ?The two things I stress more than anything else is: 1) Check to see if a gun is loaded and; 2) Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. If the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction and the gun isn?t loaded, it can?t hurt anybody,? said Cuddeback.

    Cuddeback took seven guns to show his class Monday, and said that by week?s end he will have shown the students about a dozen different guns. Some of the guns Cuddeback showed the class were an M-1 rifle circa Word War II, a 1953 Remington shotgun and a ?lever action? Marlin 39A. Cuddeback said that he will talk about ?primitive weapons? Tuesday like bows and muzzle-loaders.  

    ?I want to get these kids involved and anxious to come back,? said Cuddeback. ?Some kids have hunted since they were little. For some of them, when I give them the gun handling test on the last day, it?s the first time they?ve ever touched a gun.?

    Cuddeback does not take the students to a firing range to test their marksmanship. He said he gives them a gun-handling test in which they practice loading and unloading blank shells into a gun, crossing fences while holding a gun and how to pass the gun safely to another person.

    ?The only hands-on shooting they will do is with a laser gun,? said Cuddeback. ?We flash an image on the computer screen, and then they have to decide if it?s a safe shot.?

    Iowa is selling fewer and fewer hunting licenses every year, said Cuddeback. The money raised from hunting licenses goes toward preserving wildlife habitat and funding hunter safety courses. Cuddeback wants to preserve wildlife habitat, and thus also wants to reverse the trend away from hunting in the state. He said that he hopes the students in his class can find an adult to take them hunting when the class has finished, so they, too can grow up to become responsible hunters.

For the full story, see the March 2 edition of The Washington Evening Journal