Meeting Charlie Conger

MILLBROOK — Charlie Conger recently won the Orvis Cup at the Orvis Sandanona Game Fair. 

A resident of Millbrook, it was his second time winning the Orvis Cup, a fact of which he is quite proud. But winning is a natural occurrence for Conger;  he’s a top shooter and proud of it. He’s also proud that he is able to use his skills as a marksman to help fund many charities. One charity he is helping to raise money for is the Special Forces Charitable Trust. 

The Special Forces, also known as “The Quiet Professionals,” is an elite group of special military forces that gets deployed more often and for longer periods of time than most.

For the second year in a row, the Trust hosted the Remington Great American Shoot on Saturday, Sept. 26, in Rosharon, Texas. And, of course, Conger was there. 

Twenty teams shot clays, with Conger leading “Team Green.”  Last year the event raised $1.2 million with the clay shoot and every cent went to the Special Forces Charitable Trust and a handful of other military nonprofits.  

“I could not be more proud to shoot in support of [the Special Forces],” said Conger. “They are the unsung heroes of the past and the diplomatic warriors in today’s war on terror.”  

Conger is a retired Poughkeepsie police officer, a detective, who was on the SWAT Team for 14 years. Leaving the police force in 1989, he went to work for Remington Arms Company LLC, which is headquartered in Madison, N.C. Conger spends a lot of time traveling to headquarters and all around the country with shooting competitions and his work for Remington.  

His special interest in shooting came from his being raised in a family who loved to hunt and spent a lot of their time together shooting.

Conger also attended courses with the FBI and several military schools. He traveled to England in 1995, where he attended the English Institute of Clay Shooting and was appointed a Fellow at Buckhurst Hill, Essex. Also in England, Conger shot for the U.S. and in 1992 he won the Individual Beretta Shoot. He also won a silver medal for the U.S. in an individual shoot. He has competed in handgun, shotgun and rifle shoots all around the country, and in many other countries around the world. 

Conger and his wife, Lisa, live in a house that is off the beaten path in Millbrook, in a rather secluded spot. They prefer to live quietly and shun the spotlight.  Their daughter, Hailey, has just started as a freshman at Quinnipiac College and is thinking about a career in law.

Conger is low-​key and modest, but he’s proud of the fact that the Conger family has been in this area for hundreds of years.  His father, Frank, also an avid shooter, worked for IBM for more than 50 years. His great uncle was Edward A. Conger, a district attorney and later a federal judge. Judge Conger was a close friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  

Conger, who is 80 years old,  hoped to raise much money for the Special Forces Charitable Trust. Yet he said he’s be glad to be back home to the quiet life he prefers, maybe hunting with his Labrador Retrievers (he has five), raised by his wife, Lisa.