TREMONTON – Gabbi Rhodes graduated from Bear River High School in 2025 and was well known for dance, cheerleading and being part of the Hi-Stepper team, but she may have flown under the radar when it came to blowing away clay pigeons.
The daughter of Kirby and Malinda Rhodes was helping her father at the Golden Spike Trap Club in Brigham City. After watching her father and others shoot, Gabbi found she had a fancy for the sport.
Gabbi Rhodes shooting clays at a UTYESS state championship in May.
“My father got me started and is the one who has helped me to grow as a shooter,” she said. “He shot for a long time and gave it up for a while and started again about four years ago. Thant’s when I started to shoot.”
Gabbi said this past year she has been shooting with the Clay Dusters from Ogden, one of the clubs in the state affiliated with the Utah Youth Education Shooting Sport team.
Her father coached her into becoming one of the top shooters in the state. Rhodes first decided she wanted to win a belt-buckle her first year as a shooter and that’s what she did.
Gabbi’s grandmother, Vicky Merryweather, said she won her first belt buckle two years ago and since then she has taken home 16 other buckles in different shooting competitions and events.
“Gabbi won her last belt buckle for being part of the winners of the Utah Youth Education Shooting Sport Team at nationals in San Antonio, Texas last month,” she said. “She earned four buckles at the State Competition this year. She’s unbelievable.”
There are hundreds of shooters that go to Texas to compete. In the lady’s category there were about 50 competitors, Rhodes said.
“Talyn Christensen from Ogden won first place in the men’s category,” Gabbi said. “We are both from the Ogden Clay Duster team and I took second place in Sporting Clays and third place in international skeet.”
Rhodes said the younger shooters coming up through the ranks are showing a lot of promise. They are beating out some of the older kids.
“I’m lucky I got into it when I did with these younger kids doing so well,” she said. “I’ve learned if I can stay levelheaded and stop trying to guess where the targets are helped me a lot.”
Rhodes said she has no interest in hunting.
“I don’t even have a hunter education blue card,” she said. “High schools in Utah don’t have shooting teams so we had to join shooting clubs to compete.”
“Since I graduated from High School I plan to keep shooting just for fun,” she added. “That is If I can figure out my college schedule and work it in.”
Rhodes has a merit scholarship to University of Utah and plans to attend there in the fall.
The Utah team was one of 27 teams from across the country that compete in the Texas event, said Matt Reich, the executive V.P. of UTYESS and the CEO of the national organization.
“Gabbi was one of the best lady shooters in the state,” he said. “Every state had five athletes that compete as a team in the state competition. Gabbi and Talyn were the only ones from Northern Utah selected on the team.
“There were over 57 people from Utah, and we were second in numbers next to Texas.”
Anyone from Utah’s 14 youth teams could have participated. Reich had to pick the top five athletes that were participating in nationals. Talyn was on the team and became the number one man at nationals. His win helped them take first place as a team in the competition.