Inductees

Her skeet shooting career started not because she wanted to compete but because of something far more important.

In the early 1960s, a couple of years after her older brother Tommy was lost in an automobile accident, Judy Warden Brown picked up a shotgun and joined her dad.

“After Tommy’s death, my dad continued to shoot, but I could tell he was really lonely shooting by himself,” Brown said, noting Tommy was the first skeet shooter from Missouri appointed to the All-American Skeet Team. “One day, Dad came to me and asked me if I wanted to learn to shoot. Although I wasn’t so sure about shooting, I was positive that I wanted this chance to spend more time with my dad.”

By the end of the decade, she had emerged as one of the top skeet shooters in the world, and that’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is proud to induct Brown with the Class of 2022.

A 1967 graduate of Villa Duchesne High School in St. Louis, Brown won 13 world championships between 1965 and 1968 and also was a four-time All-American. Her two most significant world titles were the Junior World Championships and the Ladies World 12 Gauge Championships, making Brown the first St. Louis woman to ever bring two world championships to the city in any sport.

Brown also won every Missouri State Skeet Championship in every gauge and discipline. That included 12-gauge, 20-gauge, 28-gauge and .410 gauge. Among her most memorable performances was hitting 249 out of 250 targets – a record that still stands. She also was perfect on 100 shots with the 20-gauge, 100 on the 28-gauge and 97 of 100 on the .410 in competition.

Not that Brown was an overnight sensation. In fact, she laughs telling the story, that she scored only 32 out of 100 in her first competition and, for three years, didn’t show much improvement.

“Why my dad continued to do this with me and for me I will never understand,” Brown said. “Then one day, I believe the Good Lord looked down at me and said, ‘Why is she still shooting holes in the sky? I better put something out there for her to hit.’”

Wins then began to pile up locally and then beyond. Among them was the Parent-Child World Championship, marking the only father-daughter duo to win with a perfect 200 score.

Brown shot Remington 1100 semi-automatic shotguns in all four gauges and Winchester AA shells.

The challenge is aiming ahead of the target, and the degree of difficulty is pronounced: the 12-gauge has the largest amount of shot, but then that decreases as the gauge changes to 20, 28 and .410. Still, her scores also counted for Ladies, 2-Man Team and 5-Man Team events, which helps explain her 13 world titles.

Her 249 out of 250 came on a day when she eventually won in sudden death – in the second round, following a first round of 25 attempts – after the favorite told the crowd she was going to beat “that kid.”

Overall, Brown thanks her parents for allowing her to travel to compete, as well as to enhance her shooting with the foremost coach in the world, Fred Missildine, in Sea Island, Ga.

Additionally, Brown was honored with the John E. Wray Award from the Baseball Writers Association of America-St. Louis chapter in 1967. That award is bestowed on success for sports outside of baseball and was named in honor of a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports editor.

Brown also was given the Key to the City and named to the Women of Achievement honors, as well as named Missouri’s Most Outstanding Skeet Shooter.

However, after 1968, Brown stopped competing and started a family. Her children are Britton and his wife, Emily, and grandchildren Connor and Bella; Courtney and her husband, Casey Delaney, and grandchildren John, Libby and Patrick; and Bradley and his wife, Stephanie, and grandchildren Julie, Tommy and Marissa.

Best of all, she learned two valuable lessons along the way in her career.

“The first is that there is a difference in being a winner and being a champion. I believe that a winner focuses on beating someone else, and a champion focuses on beating their self,” Brown said. “The second lesson is that you can accomplish just about anything if you give it your all and don’t give up. And these lessons are part of the legacy I wish to leave my children and grandchildren.”