Beaumont Woman Wins Fast Draw One Year After Father, Former Champ Dies

A Beaumont woman who won the female fast draw shooting competition last weekend at Banning Stagecoach Days had several reasons when she said, "This one's for you Daddy."

Tammy Olive won the first-place trophy on Sunday, Sept. 11, one year to the day after her Army veteran father died at age 81.

And Tammy's dad, gun shop owner Robert S. Olive of Yucaipa, was fast draw shooting champion in the late 1950s and early 1960s on the Inland Empire circuit, Tammy and her mom said Friday.

Tammy said she took first place with a time of .579, a fraction of a second.

She was shooting under Cowboy Fast Draw Association rules, which allow competitors to start with a thumb on the pistol hammer, said Mike Harsten of The Deputies, who organized Fast Draw events at Stagecoach Days last weekend.

Her father's fastest time was .12, but he did not touch any part of the gun during starts when he was fast draw champion, Tammy said.

Cowboy Fast Draw "is the fastest-growing shooting sport in the America right now," Karsten said. "The Deputies are the only Cowboy Fast Draw club in Southern California, and there are clubs across the U.S., Canada and Australia."

At Stagecoach Days, Karsten was charging $5 for five shots.

"You use our equipment, our gun, our ammo, our holster," Karsten said. "The gun is a .45-caliber single-action pistol, which means each time you squeeze the trigger you have to cock the hammer.

"Ammunition is .45-caliber Long Colt with a shotgun primer, and it projects a wax bullet," Karsten said. "That's what makes our sport safe. You're shooting a wax bullet.

"That shotgun primer makes that bullet move 650 feet per second, more than twice as fast as a paintball gun."

Sunday was Tammy's first time in a fast draw competition, but she learned a lot about shooting from her father.

"I grew up around the gun shop and worked in the gun shop, used to go hunting with my dad," she said Friday.

"I do vaguely remember, when I was between 3 and 5, he showed me fast-draw technique in the kitchen," Tammy said in a phone interview. "I had the holster and a little red cowboy hat. But this was my first time in a real fast draw competition."

Robert S. Olive served in the Army during the occupation of Germany after World War II, Tammy and her mom said. He ran Olive's Gun Shop in Yucaipa from the 1960s to the 1980s.

"I'm proud of him," Tammy said. "The timing couldn't be better."