Thanks to Nicole McMahon of NRA Field Operations for sharing the following LaramieBoomerang.com article with NRAblog:

A little help from 'Friends'

It was more than 10 years in the making before the Albany County Indoor Shooting Range became a reality.

There were struggles along the way, and several agencies and private individuals stepped up to help.

The Albany County Commissioners, city of Laramie, Laramie Parks and Recreation, 4-H and Friends of NRA were all major contributors in the building of the facility. Once the building was complete, private individuals “purchased” the shooting lanes for $10,000 each while other private donors and local businessmen stepped up to make the indoor range possible.

For five years, Friends of NRA have filled the requests, or portions of them, for the indoor range.

In 2009, grant requests for the indoor range included $7,587.50 to purchase a specially designed vacuum cleaner for the facility.

Caswell, the company that designed the facility, said that in a facility like the one at the Albany County Fairgrounds, the gun powder residue must be vacuumed up into an explosion-proof container designed specifically for that purpose.

“There is a lot of residue left by the shooters,” Roy Kern, the manager of the indoor range, said. “I did not realize how much unburned powder there was on the floor. The vacuum with its Hepa filter picks up the powder and dirt.”

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