Lansing Rod and Gun Club: Over 65 years of community building

The Lansing Rod and Gun Club was originally formed in 1955 by a small group of locals, including hunters, fishers, clay target shooters and concerned conservationists, according to its website. Even now, more than 65 years later, the club is still going strong and supporting the community that members love.

At its base off Salmon Creek Road in Lansing, the Rod and Gun Club hosts a range for visitors to shoot rifles, pistols and even arrows. But that only scratches the surface of what the club does in Lansing.

The club also offers educational opportunities, such as hunter safety training programs, rod building and fly-fishing seminars, and training for youth on responsible gun ownership and safety. It handles matters such as fish stocking, pheasant raising and release and stream improvement, and it hosts a wide variety of community events, including for the regional chapter of the United States Pony Club.

In addition, the club holds numerous fundraiser cookouts every year, including clambakes, pancake breakfasts and chicken barbecues, which help raise money for both club expenses and community support, such as college scholarships for high school students.

“We do a lot of things for the community,” member Scott Wilcox said. “They have scholarships for the kids, their graduation. They have clambakes for different people. They do an Easter egg hunt, a hunter’s safety course. The Amateur [Trapshooting] Association, they shoot down here.”

To hear it from current members, this high level of community involvement has been the most rewarding aspect of being a club member. As Scott’s wife and fellow member Beth Wilcox said, “You get the community.”

Beth and Scott both joined Lansing Rod and Gun about five years ago. Scott explained that they joined “a little bit to trap shoot but also to help the club out.”

Others have been with the club much longer. Dwight Lucas said he joined around the late 1970s.

“I like trap shooting, and both the grandsons and both the daughters like trap shooting, so it’s kind of a family sport, I guess,” he said.

Lucas said in the time he’s been with the club, “it’s grown quite a bit,” particularly with new trap shooting fields, an added kitchen and “lots of different members coming in.”

Despite the changes, is the club has always been an important resource for residents.

“A lot of the people like it, people especially that have young kinds or maybe a spouse,” Scott said. “They like to be able to come down here and have a safe, structured place that they can train somebody or teach them how to shoot because a lot of people don’t realize that … it’s like bowling for a lot of people. A lot of the people that shoot trap and skeet, they don’t hunt or fish or nothing. That’s their activity.”

The pandemic unsurprisingly put quite a strain on the Lansing Rod and Gun Club, members said.

“That first year, we pretty much were shut down,” Scott said. “We didn’t do any breakfasts, clambakes — nothing. … It took a total financial strain because we couldn’t raise any money for part [of] a year.”

Beth explained that members weren’t able to use the main building for several months at the start of the pandemic.

“If you were here, there was only a limited number that you could shoot, and that was it,” she said. “That was the only thing that we were allowed to do.”

As the pandemic went on, things did get easier for the club, but it still wasn’t back to its full spread of pre-pandemic activities.

“When we did start up, the next year, it was right at that same time where they had booked the clambakes,” Beth said. “But then, their policy on who could attend the clambakes [changed] because of COVID and all of this stuff. So then, we’d had a large group, but then it wound up being half of a group.”

Scott added that the pandemic “still is affecting our clambakes.”

“We have maybe a third of what we normally have [for attendance],” he said.

Beth said that the pandemic has also created considerable strain on club members’ morale.

“When business is good, everybody wants to pat everybody on the back and ‘Yay, great job, team. Let’s go rally the troops, and money is no object,’” she said. “But when you’re down to those four people that are killing themselves for you, they don’t get that same, ‘Hey, guys, let’s go rally the troops.’ And we’re in that dip.”

Even though the club continues to face pandemic-related challenges, members still show up with plenty of enthusiasm and are looking forward to what this summer has in store.

To become a member of the Lansing Rod and Gun Club, those interested must attend the club’s monthly dinner that’s held at 6 p.m. the third Wednesday of every month at its headquarters. There, they can fill out an application, which is considered by existing members that same day.

Members interviewed agreed that they have yet to reject anyone’s application, as they welcome everyone — even those with no interest in the sports central to the Rod and Gun Club .

“If you’re interested in the shooting sports, great,” Beth said. “If you’re interested in cooking, great. If you have a trade that you’d like to do, there’s always things that can be worked on or fixed or whatever. … There’s always something that can be done, that has to be done. And if you want to donate your time that way to be part of the organization, then you’re more than welcome.”

To learn more about the Lansing Rod and Gun Club, visit its website at lansingrodandgun.com or call (607) 533-7711. Check out the shooting range at 55 Salmon Creek Rd. in Lansing.

Lansing at Large appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.