William McAlpine:  

It has been a long time since I have seen many of you. Probably graduation night or maybe at or 25th anniversary. Once I graduated, I went to ASU for about 3 years. I had planned to become a coach and a school teacher. I found that I could make a lot more money is sales. Since many of my family members were in the car business, I decided to follow them. (I did work for Town and Country food stores for 8 years and did well) I learned alot about running a business and protecting my inventory during these times. I went to work for Bill Ratliff who owned Wild Bill car Ranch. Bill was a master at this business and taught me everything he knew about the car business. He sold out in about 1977 so I worked for some other places but ended up with three different lots over the next few years. I made a lot of money in those days. Harold Watkins ,Bill's son n law and I reopened Wild Bill's and did very well. I finally sold out to Harold and put in my own lot. It was called Shooter Mac's Auto Sales and I stayed there for 10 years. I also went in partners with Mike Mitchell of Mitchell Buick GMC. We owned M&M Finance together for several years and then I bought him out.. While I loved the car Business and because I had become a clay target shooter I sold out to another man and became a full time professional Clay Target Shooter and Target Setter. I was hired as The National Sporting Clay Association's Chief instructor and chief Target setter in 1997.. This was the best job I ever had but as often happens when you get into the politics of an association, I ran a fowl of the board because I was making too much money. Now get this, they gave me the contract that I lived by and then after many years wanted to change it. I didn't much care for this so , I said adios and put in my own school, The Clay Target Academy. I was inducted into the Texas Sporting Clay Association a few years later. This was for all of my contributions to the sport. I invented several pieces of new equipment including the first multi Angle Trap base. (The Attitude Adjuster) I sold them for several years. I look at putting a patent on my design but there were too many ways to beat a patent. Today, every machine manufacture in the world has a tilting base an their machines but none were better than mine. I finally became a fabricator and built and sold all of by own products. As of today, I have shot,...Expand for more