Board member profile #1: Van Horn

Board member Dwight Van Horn brings a wide array of experience to the Board of Directors’ table. The Idaho native has won the two-man team championship twice — “with a different gun and a different partner each time,” he emphasizes. Not that anyone doubts his expertise in law enforcement competitive shooting. “I think this is my 29th NPSC. My first one as a shooter was in 1977,” he says.

But even experienced shooters like Van Horn admit the battle can be an uphill one. “It was a scary experience. Coming here with the best shooters in the world, at that time in Jackson, Mississippi, there were 7 or 8 hundred competitors,” he says. “We used to get something there, we used to have a name for it — the Jackson Jitters.”

“I shot the Nationals for 21 years. My last time was 1997, and in 1998 I became a referee. In 1998 we were back in Jackson and I had the Jackson Jitters again, only as a referee.”

Now in his third year of Chief Referee, Van Horn takes his duties very seriously. The jitters one has a referee, by the way, are very different from the jitters one experiences as a competitor.

“As a referee, you’re here, and all these guys out here are friends. Now you’re watching their positions to make sure they’re within the rules,” he says with a smile. “You work hard to make sure they got the proper shot value and by the same token you don’t want to give them something that they’re not entitled to.”

Van Horn has been Chief Referee for as long as the Championships have been in Albuquerque.

The way Van Horn sees it, his appointment as Chief Referee was a natural progression: Competitor, Champion, Referee, Chief Referee. “I told John Sigler that if he had no one in mind for his replacement, I’d be interested in the job,” Van Horn says. "In 2005 Sigler decided with his duties as 1st Vice President his schedule was getting to the point where he was going to step down, and he recommended that I take his place.”

Van Horn has a distinct turning point in his law enforcement career where he decided it would be a good idea to look to the arena of competitive shooting. In 1973 his career with the Trenton, New Jersey, Police Department began. Three short years later, Van Horned was “involved in a shooting,” as he puts it.

“All though it came out in my favor I realized how lacking I was in my skills,” he explains. “After being involved in a shooting situation I became very aware.” Van Horn then quotes something we’ve all heard before — “Competition is a natural extension of training.” In his experience, he says, his decision to become a competitive shooter may have very well saved his life.

In 1979 Van Horn moved to California to work for small Police Department in Hermosa Beach. He attended the Los Angeles Sheriffs’ Academy and took college courses. In fact, some of his college courses were one of his motivators for the coastal relocation. “A lot of the things that were going on that I was learning in the classroom were coming from the west coast,” he says.

Van Horn serves on nine committees.