ROGERS, Ark. — Anyone who has spent time at the Daisy National BB Gun Championship or NRA Smallbore Nationals knows Clyde Furr, even if they don’t know his name. He’s the match referee who inspects every gun before it goes to the line, and generations of young shooters have sweated through his once-overs. His wife Mary is harder to spot. As chief statistical officer she spends the match buried in scores, making sure every point gets recorded and every winner recognized. At the 2026 Daisy Nationals, both of them got called up front for a change, inducted together into the Daisy Hall of Fame.
The two met at a wedding in 1976 and married a year later, so the honor arrives 50 years after they first crossed paths. Clyde grew up a farm boy and, as the induction remarks put it, converted Mary into a farm girl in a hurry. An NRA supporter, he also got her into recreational shooting, though it took their oldest son John joining his high school ROTC program to pull the family into competition. Mary started keeping score for the rifle team. Before long she was running a team of her own, and the couple went on to become regulars at NRA and CMP events, including years at the Collegiate Pistol Championship as a range officer and statistician.
Somewhere along the way they started coaching, and their philosophy has stayed simple: any kid who wants to succeed can, provided they want it badly enough to learn and practice. What works for one young shooter won't necessarily work for the next, and the Furrs adjust accordingly. A long list of their students took that instruction to college on shooting scholarships.
The induction remarks credited the couple as two people who “stick to the goal, roll with the inevitable punches and keep the Daisy Nationals running smoothly,” with the kids always the priority. Clyde, they noted, is “well known for giving the kids fits during gun inspection.” Nobody seemed to mind.
Now in its 59th year, the Daisy Nationals brings top qualifying teams of shooters ages 8 to 15 to Rogers each summer for a five-meter, four-position BB gun championship. It runs on volunteers, and few have given it more than the Furrs.
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