Back in December the Brandenberger Schützen Verein (the German pellet-gun shooting club I'm a member of), held our annual King and Queen shoot where we choose our club's royalty for the next year by the rather random method of shooting at a plywood eagle. But the coronation of our King and Queen didn't happen until this weekend. This was the club's 20th coronation, but my first and it was quite a thrill to experience all the pageantry (and weirdness) of a German-American banquet and ceremony.

We invited all the other Schützen Vereins in the region and Peoria Sport Verein (Peoria, IL), Deutsch-Amerikanischer Schützenverein (Auburn Hills, MI), and Schützenverein St. Louis (St. Louis, MO) all came out for the event.

In the morning was a shooting competition at the DANK Haus with teams from each club vying for the Brandenberger Traveling Cup (spoiler: it's still traveling). The last time I mentioned the BSV I noted that I was not being a great club member in terms of meetings and other such club duties. Well, this time I showed up at 7 am to help set up and make dozens of open-faced sandwiches to feed all our guests.

And then last night we had a grand banquet out in Buffalo Grove at the Schwaben Center. The uniforms! The food! The music! The royalty!

Related:
Photos by me.
Zulkey's post about the evening