40th World Shooting Championships, Phoenix, AZ. Newspapers – The Phoenix Gazette; general information. * The Arizona Republic, “Confusion mars Margaret’s firing”, Captain Murdock was the heroine of the shoot-out at Black Canyon range, however, coming back from the upsetting wrangle over her final shot in the prone position to fire a 375 standing – just one point below the world record and win a gold medal for that position. The young Kansas woman got off to a fine start, firing a 97-100-97 for her first three 10-shot prone strings. Then a gremlin in the target pits went to work on her target-carrier. Following the firing of her last sighting shot, the target did not come back up for scoring. Nearly four minutes passed, then up came her record target, still with no score on the sighting target. Such a mix-up would cause the finest shooter in the world to blow a fuse, and it did. After a wrangle over lost time, Captain Murdock finally got going again, but she apparently misunderstood the range officer in setting her stopwatch to time her shooting. With all of the upsetting arguments her last string fell apart with a nine, a 10, then a string of nines before she got back into the 3 ½ -inch 10-ring. A large gallery had gathered by this time, and it didn’t take an applause meter to tell they were sympathetic to her and not to the match officials. Then the range officer blew the whistle on her just as she was about to squeeze off the last shot. Another wrangle ensued. Acting Team Capt. William Krilling appealed to the ISU Jury, and the members finally agreed to let her fire one more shot, but said they would disallow it, and the U.S. could appeal the decision. Captain Murdock was allowed two sightings – both nines – before resuming firing again, and the cheer that went up when that final contested shot was a center 10, was a sincere show of appreciation for a great shooter, particularly when that shooter is a pretty young lady. When Capt. Murdock walked off the firing line later in the day her scoreboard showed an 1140 – including the contested shot. What it would have been without all the interruptions is anyone’s guess, but certainly she would have easily taken the gold medal because she was only six points down when the melee of confusion started, and she was 24 down on the scoreboard when it ended. (the article continues with talk of the team) - * Column by Ben Avery – “‘Your’ voice for Arizona”