On September 6, 2025, 400 women filled the ranges of the Oklahoma City Gun Club in Arcadia for the club’s 26th annual NRA Women On Target Instructional Shooting Clinic. Led by club president and powerhouse Suzi Rouse and a dedicated team of volunteers, the iconic gathering has become a national benchmark for women’s shooting clinics, blending community, education and marksmanship at a scale rarely seen elsewhere.
Photo by Amber Parrow
Photo by Cara Baylus
A Vision that Took Aim in 1999
It started with one woman and an idea. In 1999, Suzi Rouse, then just a club member, approached the club’s board to propose forming a Women’s Division. “I remember I brought cookies,” she recalls. The board unanimously approved her idea, but no one quite knew what to expect. How many women would participate? Where would she find them? Would anyone even show up?
By coincidence, that same year the NRA launched a pilot program called Women On Target. Designed to welcome more women into recreational shooting, the program emphasized event-based, hands-on shooting, with an emphasis on fun, friendliness, and one-on-one support. The timing was perfect. Suzi made the new Women On Target program a cornerstone of her plan to launch the Women’s Division. She dropped flyers at local stores and opened the doors wide.
Photo by Amber Parrow
Fifty-seven women showed up that first year. By 2013, attendance had swelled to 600. Suzi’s fun shoot was officially larger than most state-level shooting competitions.
These days, Suzi caps the event at 400 to keep it manageable. Participants move through the day in color-coded squads assisted by maps, wristbands, carpools. Decades of refinement have turned a simple question—what if women had a place of their own in the shooting world?—into a lasting legacy.
Photo by Andy Schuppert
A Club Built for Scale—and for Women
Chartered in 1958, the Oklahoma City Gun Club is uniquely positioned to host an event this size. The club boasts 600 acres, 2700 members, 20 divisions, and the distinction of being a 100 percent NRA club. Yet facilities alone don’t make a Women On Target possible, especially one at this scale. The engine driving the event is the club’s deeply rooted culture of service to community and to shooting sports. Suzi Rouse not only heads the Women’s Division and runs Women On Target, she is now the club’s president. Club Vice President Mark Vaughan was elected in April 2025 to serve as First Vice President of the NRA Board of Directors.
This commitment motivates an impressive roster of dedicated talent to turn out year after year for the club’s Women On Target. Volunteers manage everything from parking and transportation to refreshments, resupply and First Aid. Dozens of sheriff’s deputies from Oklahoma and Cleveland Counties, along with the Midwest City police, instruct on the pistol ranges. Anne Mauro, shotgun coach at the University of Maryland and recipient of the 2025 NRA Golden Bullseye Award for Industry Woman of the Year, flies in every year to help. The club’s own Ladies Pistol League, in striking purple shirts, are everywhere.
Photo by Andy Schuppert
Everything about the clinic is intentional, optimized. Even the targets are chosen with care; shooting steel allows for uninterrupted range flow as shooters cycle on and off the firing line. It’s this kind of thoughtful detail that makes it possible to run hundreds of shooters through multiple ranges in a single day. Oklahoma City Gun Club, with a process refined over decades, makes it all look deceptively easy.
Four Disciplines, One Unforgettable Experience
Every participant rotates through four stations: pistol, shotgun, silhouette and AR-15. Each station offers instruction, encouragement, firearms and unlimited ammunition. Much of this is courtesy of the event’s many sponsors, including heavy-hitters like Glock and B&P ammunition. For a modest entrance fee, each woman gets a T-shirt, raffle tickets, lunch, a signature Women On Target gift bag from the NRA, and the use of loaner guns, targets and ammunition.
Photo by Amber Parrow
For some, it’s the first time pulling a trigger. Others are looking to sharpen skills, or try new firearms or a new discipline. For many, it’s an annual event they look forward to all year and a chance to be part of a shooting world where women belong and thrive.
A Tradition of Outreach and Impact
For many attendees, Women On Target is more than a day of shooting, it’s a family tradition. Mothers bring daughters. Grandmothers bring granddaughters. One family has three generations on the firing line. The women travel—from Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Nebraska, California. The competition for who drove farthest is steep, but Florida, at more than 16 hours, must be a top contender. Many moved away years ago, they explain, and there are closer Women On Target events, but there is something special to them about this one. It’s an event but also a community. Everyone wants to be part of something built just for them.
Photo by Amber Parrow
At the center of it all stands Suzi Rouse, still leading the charge 26 years later. Her unwavering leadership and vision, backed by a club dedicated to community and service, turned what might have been a modest local effort into a nationwide event and standard for excellence. Thanks to Suzi’s efforts, and those of the Oklahoma City Gun Club and its volunteers, Women On Target continues to grow and inspire, proving what is possible when women have a place on the firing line.
With steel ringing and friendships forming across the ranges, Oklahoma City Gun Club’s Women On Target offers more than an event; it is a living legacy of service, leadership, and community.
Photo by Amber Parrow
Photo by Amber Parrow
Photo by Amber Parrow
Photo by Andy Schuppert
