For the first time in the history of Cowboy Action Shooting, two siblings won the national competition Feb. 27 at the Ben Avery Shooting Range in Phoenix.

Out of over 800 gunslingers, Sedona natives Cody and Jessica Kirkham came out on top.

“As a parent, this is as prestigious as it gets,” said father Greg Kirkham, who took sixth place in his
60- to 64-year-old age group at nationals.

Particularly for Cody Kirkham, at 15 years old the youngest Single Action Shooting Society national champion ever.

“You don’t realize that you won overall until you’re home and you actually look,” he said. “You’re like, ‘Wow. Did I really just do that?’”

His first day’s performance had him counting himself out before shooting “the match of his life” his second and third days of competition, his father said.

“He didn’t want to even talk to us,” Greg Kirkham said. “But the second and the third day, he just blazed.”

“It hurt, but not too bad,” Cody Kirkham added. “Probably more toward the end of that second day, after the second stage, I realized my times were a lot lower.”

In fact, Kirkham would win his first national shooting championship by five seconds over his nearest competitor.

“Cody and I go back and forth — he beats me, I beat him,” Jessica Kirkham said. “He had an incredible match, and I don’t know, if I shot my best, if I could beat it. I probably couldn’t.”

But Jessica Kirkham’s reputation as the world’s fastest female shooter can’t even precede her draw after she beat the top 15 other quick draws in pistol, rifle and shotgun speed matches to win her third women’s national championship.

“She did exceptional, shot a fantastic match,” Greg Kirkham said. “The day of the speed events, she won all three in 10 minutes.”

She shot 10 shots from two holstered revolvers on five targets, with her fastest draw time 3.87 seconds to win the speed pistol competition.

“My training really picked up in December,” said Kirkham, who went to high school her senior year 20 minutes away from Ben Avery Shooting Range. “I found that, even though I didn’t have as much time, I had a lot more access. February, I was there three days a week, live firing, and every weekend I was shooting.”

On the same number of targets, she shot 10 rifle shots and also won the speed shotgun championship with six shots from a double-barrelled shotgun — her fastest time being 2.74 seconds.

“I always try to compete with the very top shooters, but there are just so many other great competitors,” Cody Kirkham said. “Some of them are just amazingly hard to beat. I want to pick it up heading into world competition. I’m just now realizing my potential.”

Cody and Jessica Kirkham compete in full cowboy garb under the names Cody James and SASS Kicker. Like Jessica, Cody won his first world championship in his age group four years ago and has a perfect grade-point average.

But Jessica Kirkham will graduate from high school in Phoenix with a 4.33 grade-point average and attend the University of Arizona on two scholarships totaling more than $10,000.

“I’m always trying to compete against the guys,” she said. “Knock those champions off, one by one.

“My priority will be education, but I definitely want to continue shooting. I’m going to have to rely a lot on memory. I definitely won’t have a lot of time. But before the competitions, I’ll start to pick up training again and see what I can do.”

For the Kirkhams’ fastest times from nationals at Ben Avery Shooting Range, please see the Friday, March 25, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.