Shooting just one of Emily Phillips' many skills

photo Sweetwater's Emily Phillips, 17, has enjoyed plenty of success since beginning competitive sport shooting three years ago. Last year, she won Scholastic Clay Target Program regional, state and national titles. She'll compete again in the Tennessee state championship next week in Nashville.

In addition to squeezing a huge volume of school, work and volunteer activities into her life, Emily Phillips is very adept at squeezing a shotgun trigger.

The 17-year-old Sweetwater resident, homeschooled under the supervision of Christian Academy of Knoxville, is entered in a Georgia state sporting clay "registered shoot" this weekend, although she may not go, and she will head to Nashville early next week for the Tennessee state championships in the Scholastic Clay Target Program. She'll go from there to South Carolina for the U.S. Open registered shoot.

The registered shoots are open to shotgunners of all ages and classifications.

The 5-foot-3 Phillips won in sporting clays and finished second in skeet in a regional in her first year of competitive shooting, 2012, and was an alternate runner-up in the state and was third in skeet and fifth in sporting clays at the national competition. She took first in two other sporting clay events that year.

That was just the start.

She had six first-place finishes in 2013, including Scholastic Clay Target Program regional and state competition, and was third in sporting clays and fourth in skeet in the SCTP nationals. She had nine firsts in 2014 and so far this year. Those included SCTP regionals both years and state sporting clays and skeet titles and the varsity sporting clays national championship in 2014.

One of her wins this year was in England.

She's going into her senior year of high school with 34 credit hours already at Cleveland State, and she'll have 49 hours of college credit before she turns 18. She's been an intern with her local newspaper and been involved in the 4-H honors program, and she has participated in handbells, choir, volleyball, soccer, softball and gymnastics. She's taught gymnastics, in fact.

"I think that has a lot to do with my success in shooting," Phillips said. "The hand-eye coordination is important."

Her father began her instruction in shooting, as he had with her older brothers, and Emily offered that as another reason for her early success.

"I watched my brothers, and over the years I started understanding what they were trying to do," she said. "So when I started it was very easy for me to pick up, and because I had never shot at anything I had no bad habits.

"One thing that makes me a good shooter, I think, is that I listen to my coaches."

Besides her dad, Cody Phillips, a personal instructor who has been instrumental in her recent advanced development is Brad Ramsey, the owner of Benton Sporting Clays in Benton, Tenn. Emily has been shooting at the range there for a couple of years and started working there on Fridays about six months ago.

"She's just a natural talent that comes along every now and then," said Ramsey, who watched Phillips for a while before offering his tips. "She could pick up a set of golf clubs and do well. She's real easy to work with. She picks up everything you show her."

Stan Latham is the coach of her Lucky 7 team, which includes six other youth shooters and operates out of Kenneth Campbell's Lucky 7 Ranch.

Phillips also has been active in volunteer efforts for Special Olympics, Relay for Life, Kiwanis Club, Ruritan Club and Veteran Home projects, among others. She's been chosen among fewer than 50 teens nationwide for the National Rifle Association's Youth Education Summit on July 27 to Aug. 2 in Washington. She's the first participant selected from Tennessee in three years.

Through Cleveland State she has become extensively involved in the Phi Theta Kappa honor society and is its Athens campus fundraising officer for the 2015-16 school year.

But nothing is more relaxing to her or excites her more than bursting clay targets when she aims and fires. She has started trap shooting to go with sporting clays and skeet.

"It's a sport that you're out there doing. You're never on the bench," she said. "And it can be for everybody - girls as well as boys. It doesn't matter how big or fast you are. We even have kids in wheelchairs compete."

Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.

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