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LOOK WHO’S MEET: TALKING Herb & Lynn Parsons by Connie Mako Miller From Shotgun Sports Magazine, February 2007 www.shotgunsportsmagazine.com he year is 1954. As the con- siderable crowd of eager spectators looks on, an 11- year-old boy in a shirt of Winchester red and black Tplaid mounts a 20-gauge Model 12 to T Parsons H. Lynn Photo courtesy Dr. his shoulder while his father hand- throws three clay birds, then four into the air. Pointing the shotgun, the little fellow shoots, pumps faster than lightning and smokes every target before any can hit the ground. Crush, crush, crush! The audience applauds loudly and laughs with pleasure. His father playfully jokes, “Wow. That was pretty good! But after all, whose show is this?” The “show” was a Winchester shooting exhibition, and it belonged to the boy’s father, the one and only Herb Parsons. Wielding the 20 gauge with happy precision for the approving audience and cameras was Herbert Lynn Parsons. By 1954, Lynn, as his daddy called him, was an old pro on to Herb’s extreme talent and popular- action and interviewed Herb. his dad’s exhibition circuit. He’d been ity. If there is an “it” factor, Herb Lynn told me the filming took about crisscrossing the country with his Parsons had “it.” two weeks. He recalled the excitement, father during the summer months for Happily, some of Herb’s master beginning with his first flight on an air- two years and had a gun in his hands strokes with long guns are preserved in plane into New York City. He still has from the time he was in a stroller. DVD or VHS format. If it were not for the ticket! In those days, flying was not Bringing you back to today, 50+ Lynn and his family, the Showman the everyday occurrence it is today. years later, that boy is nearing retire- Shooter film would have disappeared The flight attendants took special care ment age. Dr. H. Lynn Parsons has into extinction as the 16mm film of Lynn, delivering him safely to his spent his working career as a sur- decayed. The originals were lost, but father at the airport. During the time geon, while his life’s work has been Lynn had two copies of the 16mm film spent at the studio, pictures were taken preserving the history of his father’s he kept in a closet. Those were pieced of Lynn sitting behind the camera and exhibition shooting. together to create one final copy that has posing in the other areas of the set. If you are not familiar with Lynn’s been restored and is available at Capturing the rifle and shotgun dad and the film Showman Shooter, www.shotgunsportsmagazine.com/store. exhibition was a challenge to the cam- you have missed out on one of the If you visit www.showmanshooter.com, eramen of the 1950s. There were no most spectacular exhibition shooters you can click your way into some fasci- ready solutions to many of their film- of all time. Joel Herbert Parsons nating history about Herb Parsons and ing problems, so responses had to be (1908-1959) was the Winchester- photographs of him and his family. invented on the spot. One dilemma the Western “Showman Shooter,” living Showman Shooter was filmed in production people had to solve was up to his title by performing feats of segments at several locations. Herb the low visibility of the clay targets rifle and shotgun skill, along with and Lynn’s shooting exhibition men- being thrown by Herb. With the con- brilliantly entertaining chatter few tioned at the start of this interview was cave black side of the target facing the others before him displayed and at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The camera, they were hard to see. They none that have come after him could “den” scenes were actually captured at brainstormed ideas and found a solu- surpass. Herb’s appeal and charis- a studio in New York City, while the tion was to paint the black side of the matic personality have never been hunting sequences were caught across target a brighter color. The production equaled. A True magazine article that the river in New Jersey. Ted Husing, a crew and their volunteered assistant, chronicled Herb’s accomplishments famous sportscaster with a star on the Lynn, spent hour upon tiring hour with tagged him as the “Showman Hollywood Walk of Fame and paint brush in hand, coloring the hun- Shooter” and the moniker stuck, to American Sportscasters Association dreds of targets needed for the filming. endure across decades as testimony Hall-of-Fame inductee, narrated the Lynn didn’t mind the job, as it was a www.shotgunsportsmagazine.com Shotgun Sports MEET: Herb & Lynn Parsons release from the interminable waiting next to his dad facing the lens. The entertain 5,000 appreciative fans. (Can during the filming process. reason for that look is the director told you imagine 5,000 women, children There are a couple head-on, slow- him to look directly at the blinding and men coming out to watch a shoot- motion sequences in Showman Shooter sun-reflective tin. Smiling for the ing exhibition today?) From North taken of Herb blasting an orange and an camera was sometimes a painful Carolina, the Parsons headed to the egg with my all-time favorite gun, a process, he discovered! East Coast, Groton, New York, Model 42 Winchester. The impasse of Herb traveled throughout the Winchester’s home in New Haven, those shots was how to get a picture of United States and parts of Canada as Connecticut, Manchester, New Herb shooting towards the camera, a Winchester salesman and their sole Hampshire, Hallowell, Maine, and with the orange and egg exploding, exhibition shooter. One year he back to New Haven. Wearily driving without also getting the cameraman! would make appearances in the East home to Somerville, Tennessee, Herb What they came up with was a way to and the next in the western portions and Lynn had traveled over 5,000 station the brave cameraman high atop of the country. His shows were miles in that one summer! Remember, a flatbed truck, placing a door with a booked well in advance, as he was there weren’t all the interstate high- glass window in front of him. The cam- highly popular and in great demand. ways crisscrossing the country in era caught the picture through the glass. When school was out, Lynn traveled those days, just secondary roads. What You have to think that camera operator and shot in the show. At just nine years a schedule! But, for a boy, it was a was probably wondering what the heck old, he made his premier. In the home- grand adventure with his dad. As Lynn’s strength and stature grew, he graduated from shooting six single targets thrown by his dad to two more, then three, totaling 11 birds shot in his dad’s show. Breaking four hand- thrown clay targets and expertly hit- ting 15 birds was accomplished when he was 11 years old. Somewhere along the line, Lynn thought it would be splendid fun to purposely miss the sin- gle target his dad threw for him as the first shot then pump the gun quickly and break the bird with his second shell. Lynn recalled, “Needless to say, that didn’t go on for very long!” A year later, in 1955, Lynn’s younger brother, Jerry, age 9, was big enough to join the team, shooting a 20-gauge newly released Winchester Model 50 Photo by David B. Eisendrath, Jr., Brooklyn, NY; Photo courtesy Dr. H. Lynn Parsons H. Lynn Photo courtesy Dr. NY; Brooklyn, Photo by David B. Eisendrath, Jr., autoloader. Jerry is now Dr. Jerry Parsons, a Professor at Texas A&M and a Texas Cooperative Horticulturist liv- This photo was taken by a True magazine photographer for an article which ing in the San Antonio area. appeared in the July 1954 issue (the photo was not used). The first target had Around 1956, with Lynn and Jerry been broken and the second was in the air. Notice Herb is talking and focused both shooting in their father’s exhibi- on Lynn, who said, “I’m not sure whether he was concerned about me or his tion, the lawyers at Winchester became beloved Model 12 — ‘Mae West’ — which was airborne!” concerned about child labor laws and liability. When the attorneys demanded he was getting himself into. Did he call town of another legend of shooting, the boys no longer participate because home to ask his wife if she’d paid his Annie Oakley in Greenville, Ohio, of liability issues, it greatly upset Herb. life insurance premium that month, or Lynn was introduced to an audience of Lynn has copies of correspondence did he wonder if she was the one who Boy Scouts and others totaling over between the Winchester legal depart- came up with the idea of the head-on 3,300 people. You might think a ment and his father that contain some shot in the first place? Showman youngster of nine could be intimidated. intense words on the matter. In 1957, at Shooter later received production Not Lynn! He said, “I was a kid. It was the International Scout-A-Rama held awards for the filming techniques, great fun!” at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Lynn which were advanced for the times. That same year, 1952, Herb and his was paid $25 for an appearance and, When the director called “Lights, son motored to Canton and Columbus, therefore, was allowed to shoot.

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