True Oliver

True Oliver established himself as a painter and a decorator but, at the age of 19, he began a more noteworthy career as a trapshooter from The Royal Gun Club of Ladner, British Columbia. Between 1907 and 1938 he was the provincial doubles and handicaps champion seven times, skeet champion twice, and captured the all-around title on numerous occasions. He also competed internationally during this period, most notably at the 1920 Summer Olympics, where he placed fifth out of eight squads as a member of the Canadian delegation to the team trap event.

A year later he finished second in the Grand American Handicap, which was the top trap and skeet shooting tournament in North America at the time. He also won the 1925 Pacific District Handicap that was held in Seattle, Washington. A lifelong member of the Amateur Trap Shooting Association of American and the Vancouver Gun Club, he served as secretary of the Royal Gun Club of Lander (and its successor, The Lander Gun Club) from 1900 until his death in 1957. Outside of shooting he was a community activist, police commissioner during the 1930s, and a two-term school board trustee in the 1950s. He is a member of British Columbia’s municipal Delta Sports Hall of Fame, having been inducted as a pioneer.